


Lick Your Wounds

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Ready For The Siege [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftercare, Bondage, Dom/sub, Domme Natasha Romanov, Dubious Consent, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Sub Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:06:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1202275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki is <i>angry.</i> However, he doesn't react in quite the way that anyone else had thought he would, least of all himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unexpected Return

Loki burned with helpless rage, and his hideaway wasn't helping him anymore. He had held Natasha helpless in his hands in this very place, bound her with magic and fucked her senseless. Even so, she had held onto her core sense of self so tightly, and he hadn't truly dominated her soul the way he thought he had. Yet when she had held him at her mercy, he had melted into her whims. He had lost himself utterly, had wanted to please her so desperately, and gratefully accepted her care for him afterward. Loki had wanted to believe her touch meant something, that she didn't see him as an assignment from her superiors but could actually come to care for him. But it still burned him that he had lost control _to a mortal,_ and with that realization had come a fiery rage that had startled even him. He hadn't meant to harm that pathetic human male, but he hadn't been in control of himself. Unsettled and full of aimless anger, Loki had lashed out at him instead of at Natasha. He hadn't wanted to harm her, however angry he had been with her, so he had picked up the threads of his discarded plan to humiliate and isolate her.

And still, he had failed. She wasn't alone. She wasn't afraid. She wasn't cowed and ready to call him master. If anything, she was stronger than before.

His hideaway carried too many memories of her, of when he had pressed himself into her supple body, when he had allowed himself, however short a time, to want and feel.

Loki cried out in rage, a burst of magic spreading from around him in a destructive sphere. His furs caught fire, but he had long ago spelled his books and scrolls safe from his temper. He howled, fists caught at his sides, and another burst of magic rolled out from his body.

Yet he could see her everywhere, still imagine her scent lingering in his domain.

The destruction only made Loki even more enraged. A mortal woman reduced him to this, and he was a god. She should fear him, not smile and call him a job. Loki might not be Aesir, but he was powerful and well versed in _seidr._ He had might and power like the mortals would never wield, and Natasha refused to see it.

Without meaning to, he appeared in her suite in Avengers Tower. His presence triggered an alarm, and the blaring sound disoriented him. He didn't know how he had arrived there, especially if the spells he had worked into Natasha's body were gone.

 _"I'll find you, Natasha,"_ he had murmured long ago. It had been a quiet, intimate moment, a time he had tender thoughts toward her. _"Wherever you are, I will find you. Perhaps I will help you save your innocent souls, perhaps not."_

Which meant it wasn't a spell that bound them now, and that made Loki even angrier. It wasn't something he could control, a bond that he could limit or change at will. It was a loose _thing_ between them, and while Natasha couldn't work the _seidr,_ she had strength of will enough to affect it.

She was asleep in her bed when he arrived, a blanket tucked around her, red hair spilling across her pillow in a cascade of curls. As soon as the alarm sounded, her eyes snapped open and she rolled across the bed, away from the door. Her hand slid beneath the mattress in a practiced motion before she was even fully awake. She had her Glock 19 aimed at his chest by the time she was awake, and Loki had to admire that in spite of himself. He knew she was good at what she did, and he only held her off balance because of his inherent instability. Only the insane could predict him accurately, and that was one quality she certainly did not have. He didn't want to admire her, even if he did; that would only acknowledge that she could be a worthy adversary, and she was _mortal._ She should have been beneath him.

But that only made him recall having her beneath him, writhing and panting, his magic binding her, feeling her, winding her up to rapture. He _wanted_ her fiercely, his mouth nearly watering at the sight of her, even though her sleepwear was a simple cotton T shirt and pants.

She didn't say anything, but her jaw wasn't clenched. It possibly was some time since he had burned her in his rage, losing control of his magic. He didn't know when or where in her timeline he had found her, and it pleased him that she was sleeping alone. Loki knew she was close to the Hawk, and he would have killed the archer if he had been sharing her bed.

"You don't seem surprised to see me," he observed.

"You said you'd be back. Of course you'd choose an inconvenient time."

Loki flexed his magic, locking her room against any intruders. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he didn't want to be interrupted while he figured it out.

"How is it inconvenient?" he purred, stepping forward.

There was no other safety on a Glock than the pressure on the trigger, so Loki had no clue she was going to shoot him until she did. The bullet lodged itself into his armor, and Loki was thrown back a few steps. He looked up at her smirk incredulously.

"This is very inconvenient," Natasha told him, voice neutral. "You can leave now."

"This isn't finished between us," Loki snarled, striding forward. Expecting it now, the other bullets were magically deflected before hitting him. He twitched his fingers, pulling the gun from her hands and tossing it aside negligently.

"Your plan didn't end the way you wanted it to. Don't pout, it isn't a very good look on you."

She didn't move when he vaulted over her bed and caught her in his arms. "I had you _broken,_ little spider. You tried so hard, but still I bested you!"

"Why does it matter to you so much?" she asked, voice level. "I told you that you won. You simply didn't break me."

_"Why didn't it?"_

Loki managed not to cringe at the desperation lacing his voice, and he didn't shake her until her teeth rattled as much as he wanted to. Her expression didn't change, and he wanted so badly to make her feel _something._

"You'd have to matter for it to affect me," she said, voice flat and emotionless. Loki reeled, fingers digging into her arms painfully enough to make her flinch. She was still mortal, after all, for all of Hel's gifts to her. "Loki," Natasha said in a warning tone.

His mouth crashed down over hers, tongue plundering her mouth viciously. She bit him, and her fisted hands struck his solar plexus sharply. Loki gasped in pain and staggered backward, stunned. "You hurt me!"

"What do you think you were doing to me?"

Loki wanted to shoot back that she was _his,_ that he had molded and shaped her. He had bested her in combat, admittedly with magic, and he had woven spells into her body. But those spells were gone now, and he hadn't shaped her much, had he? She had broken _him,_ and she didn't need him. This much was clear.

"You don't know what you're doing, do you?" she asked, and his face contorted in rage again. She didn't back down, which only made him even angrier.

He knocked her down to the bed, howling at her in anger, his magic creating a whirlwind around them. Loki held her arms down and pinned her legs with his own, wordlessly shouting at her. She had unmanned him, he burned with rage from it, and he was utterly lost.

Natasha squirmed beneath him, but Loki held her fast. "What will you do now, then?"

The whirlwind died down slightly. "You should fear me," Loki snapped, eyes flashing. "I could kill you for your insolence."

"There's no challenge in that for you."

Loki found himself grinding against her, remembering the feel of her wet heat around his cock. He burned with both shame and desire for her, the memory of her soft hands and voice making his blood boil. "You're so sure of yourself," he snarled, baring his teeth at her.

 _"You_ invaded _my_ bedroom to shout at me," she pointed out.

Taking a breath, Loki calmed himself enough to ask "When did you last see me?"

"Four and a half months ago."

It had been only four hours for him. "Far less than that for me."

"So you're still angry that I'm not as alone as you are."

"You've said we're the same," he said through grit teeth.

"I made different choices along the way."

Her voice was neutral, as if it didn't matter what he thought of her at all. Loki raised one hand from hers, intending to draw back and strike her. In that moment, her hand snaked down to palm his erect cock through his breeches. Loki hissed at the contact, his fist faltering as a bolt of pleasure shot through him. He narrowed his eyes at her, but Natasha was unfazed by it, too busy watching him for minute expression changes.

"This means nothing to you, does it?" he asked, ashamed to hear the strain in his voice.

"Do you need it to?" she asked evenly.

Loki bared his teeth in a grimace, and she shimmied beneath him, loosening her other wrist from his grasp. He allowed it, curious to see what she would do. Natasha unlaced his breeches, and then the hand rubbing at his crotch slid inside. His breath froze as her hand closed over him, and he almost didn't care how closely she watched his expressions.

"Or is it just disappointment?" she asked quietly. "You wanted me alone, dependent on your good will, at your mercy. You could feel like a god, as if you held me at your whims. You could dominate me, own me, make me do whatever you wanted."

Loki's lips parted almost of their own volition as he stared down at her. Yes, he had wanted that. He had craved it, had thought it possible. But she had shattered that illusion with the easy way she bent him to her whim, breaking him down to nothing.

And the most terrible part of it was, he had thoroughly enjoyed it at the time, wanting even more from her. What kind of god did that?

"It is, isn't it?" Natasha asked, her palm sliding over the head of his cock, precome making the motion easy. He made a harsh, noncommittal grunt in reply, but her lip twitched as if he had spoken. "I've had time to think on this."

Some distant part of him sang at the admission. He preoccupied her thoughts, and she had to apply her reasoning skills to understanding him. She spent time thinking about him; she wasn't as unaffected by him as she wanted him to think.

Shifting his weight to one hand, Loki let his other skim over her clothed torso. He palmed her breast, watching her reaction to his touch. He knew enough of her body by now to catch the slight hitch in her breathing and the dilation of her pupils. She did enjoy her time in his bed, and had never denied that. Natasha only denied any dependence on him, any truth to his wish that he had shattered her.

Her self had been hard won, he recalled. Of course she would guard it so carefully.

He shifted his hips toward her hand slightly, rubbing his thumb over her peaked nipple. They stared at each other intently as he teased her breast and she stroked his cock. Loki's breathing was ragged as he watched her, not sure what his motives were for allowing this to happen. He wasn't sure what _her_ motives were for doing it, either. There was nothing in her expression to give him a clue, but he was sure the pleasure he took in her ministrations was obvious. She made no comforting noises, no nonsense sayings meant to soothe. He wanted to hear her whisper that she had him, she would keep him safe, she would watch over him; it made no sense, none, but he wanted it as much as he wanted her will bent to his.

Almost without warning, he spilled over her fist, spurts of his seed falling to her sleep shirt and the opened edges of his breeches. Loki let out a hiss of breath when he came, hips jerking slightly against her hand. He stared at her intently in that moment, knowing he had her aroused but nowhere near completion.

"And what of your wants, dear spider?" he purred, pleased that he sounded something like his usual self.

"Would you let me kill you so easily?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

Loki leaned in so that her hands were trapped between their bodies, his lips hovering just above hers. "You won't kill me, Natasha. Not when I'm the only one that can occupy your thoughts this way. No one else presents quite the challenge for you."

He shifted off her and off the bed, but she didn't move other than to turn her head to watch him. It amused him that she didn't deny his statement. "Another time, perhaps," he said, inclining his head politely. As if he hadn't spilled his seed on top of her, as if he wasn't still undone and open to her view, as if her comrades weren't likely trying to break through his wards. Loki allowed a ghost of a smile to grace his lips. He had no plan in place, but she didn't know that. Let her worry and wonder, her mind spinning uselessly as she tried to puzzle him out. Cold comfort for him, but comfort nonetheless. He needed to collect his thoughts.

Stepping back, he opened a portal behind him. Natasha rose to a sitting position, watching his expression closely. Loki resisted the urge to throw out another parting shot, and disappeared back into his hiding place. Somehow, it didn't seem to be as oppressive and hollow any longer. Now it seemed like home again, a place where he could try to plan _something._

Natasha was expecting it, and he didn't want to disappoint.

***

Natasha changed into a new sleep shirt and washed her hands before moving toward the door, wondering why no one had entered despite JARVIS' alert. As soon as she touched her doorknob, she felt the tingly static of Loki's magic, and it all made sense. Her door crashed inward, and there was Clint and Steve, and behind them was Bruce and Tony, arguing over the schematics loaded on the Starkpad in Tony's hand. The noise stopped abruptly when her door opened, and they all gaped at her. "You're alive," Clint said, obviously relieved. "JARVIS sounded the alert when Loki showed up, but all sensors and access points were blocked. I assume it was a spell of some kind?"

"Yes," she affirmed with a nod. "He was still angry that I wasn't a broken wreck." She certainly wasn't about to tell them that jerking him off seemed to take the edge off his anger; that was private, and seemed to confirm the thoughts that Loki had _no idea_ how to approach others if not in a dominant position.

"Is he still on that?" Steve asked, frowning. "Does that mean we have to brace ourselves for some kind of magic war?"

About to ask what he meant by that, Natasha followed Steve's gaze. Her room was a wreck, bullet holes and items strewn all around the room. She hadn't really paid attention when she changed shirts and washed her hands, but it did look terrible. "At least I don't have too many things to break," she said, meaning to be flip enough to put their minds at ease.

It didn't work. Bruce looked even more concerned, possibly because he understood the implication after traveling for so long. People who did that traveled light, and possessions carried that much more value. He understood that the items in her suite were incredibly personal and valuable to her. "So he knew how to get to you."

"Actually, it was completely accidental. He created a whirlwind in the room," Natasha informed them, voice neutral.

"A whirlwind?" Tony echoed, eyes getting large. "As much as I can pat myself on the back for the structural integrity of my tower, how the fuck did JARVIS not pick that up?"

"Sir," the AI said, a vaguely disapproving tone to its voice, "all sensory data was blocked soon after Loki's arrival."

"Magic," Clint echoed, voice carefully blank. Natasha knew it meant he was upset, frightened for her safety and what Loki's interest might mean.

"As much as it might surprise you, I think he was just having a temper tantrum." All of the men around her looked to her for clarification, which just made her sigh and repress an eye roll. They were all fairly intelligent, though emotionally constipated. "When he made his portal to leave, I saw his hideaway. It had just as much damage as my room does. So he was angry, broke his things, came here and broke mine."

Steve blinked a little, digesting that. "Then what made him leave?"

Clint watched Natasha's expression carefully as she replied "I told him it was a bad time."

"And he _listened_ to you?" Tony scoffed before looking back at his Starkpad. "No residual magic traces that JARVIS can pick up. Thanks, buddy."

"You're welcome, sir," the AI said, sounding much less huffy.

That almost made Natasha smile. "He hasn't figured me out yet."

Tony snorted. "As if he ever could. You're like, the ultimate super spy over there."

"He likes you," Bruce said suddenly. That made Natasha's estimation of his emotional recognition rise a few notches. "He's acting the way a third grader does," he clarified for Tony, whose brows had furrowed in confusion. "You know, the whole pigtail pulling thing that boys do to girls that they like. If he ignored her, it would mean he hated her or was indifferent." He looked back at Natasha and made an apologetic shrug.

"Makes sense," Clint said slowly. He definitely didn't look happy with that assessment, so Natasha knew she would have to do some kind of damage control.

"Or he just wants to make it seem that way," Steve said. He looked to Natasha apologetically. "No offense, but I can't believe we'd be able to tell what he wants that easily."

Natasha smiled fondly at him so that Steve would know she wasn't offended by the remark. "It's likely something all of the above. Why not have some kind of affection and a dozen different half baked plots going on?"

"He's arrogant," Tony agreed. "He wants to be seen as a God. I mean, that was the whole reason why Pirate Fury wanted you to reel him in, before he does any more damage. I'm glad Thor's not here, he'd see this and it would break his puppy dog heart."

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation and Steve turned to Tony with an incredulous look on his face. "Are you _trying_ to be that insensitive?"

Sighing loudly and pointedly, Natasha gave each a level look in turn. "Thank you for coming, but I've got some cleaning to do and then some rest to get. I'm sure Tony will look into configuring some kind of magic radar or firewall or something to that effect." He visibly brightened at the idea and started poking at his Starkpad. Really, he was too easy to manipulate. Bruce nodded at her and started heading toward his own living space. Steve needed a little more reassurance before he left the area as well.

Clint was leaning against her wall, arms crossed over his chest. "So. Godly shit fit of epic proportions, huh?"

"He wasn't exactly pleased to see me when he arrived. He still wants to know why I'm not broken and alone."

"Like him."

"Yes."

Shaking his head, Clint headed into her room to help sort through her belongings and put them in the right place. "Bruce has a point."

"I'm not disagreeing with you," Natasha replied, working with him to upright the armchair that usually sat in the corner of her bedroom.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Clint asked quietly, not meeting her eyes as he picked up the clothes on the floor and dumped them back into her hamper. "He wanted to isolate you and has feelings for you. In anyone else," he said, looking back up at her, "that would be a goldmine."

"Still is, potentially."

"Fury isn't pushing for having him join SHIELD."

"I'm still his Loki expert, for better or for worse." Natasha shrugged at his intent look in her direction. "Loki's vulnerable. Lost. He has no idea what the hell he's doing. Isn't it better for him to focus on me and have me potentially turn his purpose, than to let him loose upon the universe?"

"You are _not_ Loki's babysitter."

Natasha thought of the way he had tensed when she palmed him, the look on his face that was at once desire and shame. He wanted her, certainly, but there was his pride to consider. He was the very epitome of the phrase "cut your nose off to spite your face," as he had done so many times with his family. Loki would never come to her unless he thought a manipulation was involved somehow, or he could gain something from the connection. She just had to find the right hook that would keep him coming back and keep his violent streak curbed.

"I know," she told Clint softly. "Just as you're not mine."

Clint bristled. "Tasha…"

"It's not an unkindness, Clint, you know that. What was I like when you first brought me in? Do you even remember?" He pressed his lips tightly together, refusing to answer her. "He's the same way, you know. At loose ends, ready to self destruct."

"You're too fucking calm about this."

"I see him for what he is now. No illusions left to shatter."

"You don't _think_ there are," Clint challenged.

"Could be," she acknowledged. "But I saw him here for what he was, and what he wanted."

"Which is?"

"Me, any way he can get me." Before Clint could protest, she placed a calming hand on his chest. "You know I fucked him."

Uncomfortable, Clint nodded. "You mentioned that, yeah."

"I fucked him, and I _fucked_ him. And I fucked _with_ him. He'd said, from the very beginning, that no one else had ever been able to sneak past him. No one else had been able to get the drop on him, manipulate _him."_

"And so he got his revenge."

"Except he didn't," Natasha told him. "I'm not alone. I'm not an outcast. I'm still trusted." Her lips quirked in amusement. "Not by the Council, but we're not counting them."

"Hell no," Clint returned with an answering smile.

"So he has no idea what the hell to do now. I was his plan all along, and it didn't work." She could see the understanding dawn in Clint's eyes. "He doesn't know what he wants, but he knows that somehow, I'm key to it. All I have to do is guide him in the right direction."

"And if he won't let you?"

Natasha gave him a sensual, secretive smile. "I know how to get to him. He'll let me."

Clint sighed. "Your op, then?" She nodded. "All right. Call me in if you need to."

She gave him a hug, which drained the tension from him. She did such moves so rarely, and they counted for so much. "Why do you think I'm telling you this? No flying in there without backup if I can help it."

She just hoped she was telling him the truth.

***

Natasha stopped short when she left her bedroom for the sitting area of her suite. Hel stood there, staring at the rather bland landscape Tony had put into the room soon after she moved in. He had declared her space too empty and impersonal, and thought a massive landscape photo would give the room more character. Determined not to let anything go to waste, she hid two blades in the frame and rearranged her furniture so that it was a focal point of the room. Clint knew the blades were there, and had given her a lopsided smile and eye roll at her unrelenting need to be prepared for all contingencies. He likely wasn't laughing now that Loki had arrived.

"Lady Hel," Natasha said, aware she was still in her sleep clothes. The goddess was standing tall and regal, her hair loose and falling down in cascade down her back. The gown was as black as her hair, shot with silver runes that seemed to shift and shimmer with every breath. It had long sleeves, falling to her wrists, the neckline was a wide scoop across the front and an impossibly low dip to the small of her back. It skimmed her figure closely, and Natasha thought it rather resembled one of the evening gowns she had worn on an op months ago.

Hel turned, smiling warmly at her. "Natasha," she said, turning to look at her casual attire. Her voice was the whisper of dust across grave stones, yet it carried across the distance between them. "I see you are well. My gift agrees with you."

"It seems to, yes. Painful, but you hadn't promised me anything about that."

Inclining her head slightly, Hel approached. "No, I had not. Should I have?"

Natasha paused. "Is it time to collect me?" she asked quietly. The idea discomfited her; while she wasn't opposed to the idea of death, she wasn't ready _now._

The surprise on her face was nothing more than a slow blink of her eyes, as if she wasn't entirely sure how to respond. "No," Hel said finally. "I had wished to speak to you of other things."

"Other things," Natasha echoed. The only things they had in common were death and Loki, and either one was likely to be a topic she would not want to discuss.

"Loki," Hel said with a nod. She gestured widely for the sofa. "Sit beside me, dear. We have much to speak of."

"He was here," Natasha said, moving to sit beside her.

"Yes. And he will be again." Hel said primly, her back effortlessly straight. She was out of place in this suite, but carried her same regal air as if they were in Helheim. When Natasha sat, Hel handed over a crystalline bottle inscribed with a number of runes. It was filled with some kind of clear yellow liquid, just viscous enough not to slosh when it appeared out of nowhere. "You should have this. Work it into his blood, then he will truly be able to see."

"What is it?"

"You spoke to me of balance. Ledgers and accounting, yes?" Natasha nodded, and Hel's lips stretched into a smile. "Loki cannot conceive of such a notion as you have. He balances slights with elaborate plots for revenge."

"I've noticed," Natasha replied dryly.

"This will allow him to see as you do. To be able to comprehend the ledger system you speak of. No more, no less. Then he may choose to do as he sees fit."

"What kind of harm would this do to him?" Natasha asked suspiciously, picking up the bottle to inspect its contents. At Hel's nod of encouragement, she lifted the stopper and inhaled the aromatic scent of essential oils she could not name.

"What harm does your ledger give you?" Hel asked in return, eyebrow raised.

Point. Natasha nodded slightly, and put the stopper back on. "There is still no guarantee he'll even be back," she said, though she knew the words were hollow. She had felt his anger and desperation mixed together. He wanted to know why he hadn't been able to break her, why his plan hadn't worked the way he wanted it to.

Hel laughed. "Oh, I know Loki enough to know that he cannot resist a puzzle he shouldn't pull apart. You are fascinating for him. He doesn't understand you. He _cannot,_ and it drives him mad. Such things draw him closer in spite of himself."

"You know him very well."

"I've seen the images that the dead see," Hel replied with a smile. "So I've seen many things."

"You haven't met him," Natasha guessed. She doubted Hel would be so calm if she had seen Loki's wrath up close and personal.

"I've never met him in his world, and he seeks to avoid mine. It was a bargain struck long ago with my mother, and the magic of my mother and his mother allowed me to live. I was born dead, truly dead, and their intervention was necessary to assume rule. In other words, I _am_ magic, and on some level, like calls to like." She reached out and touched Natasha's arm fondly. "You are strong in ways he cannot be. He doesn't comprehend this, but you do. Your world does not revolve around him, as mine does not. It drives him mad."

"And you want me to make him even more insane?"

Hel shook her head. "No need for that. His own flaws do the work for you. No, Natasha, I don't ask for that. Be yourself. You will either change him or break him. Either way, he cannot continue as he is, or he will drive himself to my realm after all."

"What was the bargain he struck with your mother?" Natasha asked, frowning. It suddenly seemed important. Why would Hel at once want him in her realm and not want him there?

"To learn the secret ways of Yggdrasil. It allows him to move through realms according to his whim. He might arrive at my realm, but he wouldn't stay there for long. The ways to leave it are dangerous, and the rage he would visit on other realms would be great." She patted Natasha's arm. "I may appreciate the entrants to my realm, but it doesn't mean I wish other realms be decimated to populate it."

That made sense, so Natasha nodded. "I can see that. Uncontrolled population growth leads to chaos and destruction."

"You are practical," Hel commented, rising.

"I suppose. No point in weeping for things that cannot be changed."

"That's what I mean," Hel said with a smile.

"Is this helpful?"

"For this endeavor? Of course. It's only by being practical that you can have any headway at all. For someone who claims to be so superior to the rest of us, he is largely ruled by emotion. He's not very rational at all."

"That makes him unpredictable."

"Perhaps," Hel replied with a slight shrug of her elegant shoulders. A shimmering portal into Helheim opened behind her. "But behind the unpredictability lies a very predictable and dare I say very _human_ response pattern. You can deal with him. I've been looking into your history with the seers since you left my realm." Her eyes glittered like faraway stars. "You are more than a match for Loki, Natasha. And better yet, I think you'll win this battle of wills. After all, you've had more practice at control and practicality."

Natasha stayed seated as Hel left. She closed her hand around the crystal vial of essential oils and pondered Hel's confidence in her skills. She _had_ come a long way since her initial uncertainty around Loki. She used to fear instability. Now it seemed as though she was capable of finding the predictable within the unpredictable.

Hm. Something to think about, then.

***  
***


	2. Striking A Bargain

Now that he knew the layout of her rooms at Avengers Tower, the next time Loki appeared in Natasha's quarters, he materialized in the path of her roll across the bed to her weapons and immediately put up the protective spells to keep the others out. He pinned her down with his magic before she was fully awake, his teeth bared in a grimace of a smile. "Were you having lovely dreams, dear spider?"

Loki grasped her wrists and pulled her arms behind her, nudging her limbs so that she was kneeling away from him, face and chest pressed against the bed. A sharp yank on her arms pulled her torso up and off the bed a bit. His cock twitched, a deep ache starting to fill him at the thought of sliding into her body. He wanted her so badly he could taste it, and he didn't want to examine that desire too closely. The wanting was too close to _need,_ and his sense of self shied away from needing anyone that way.

"What do you want?" Natasha asked, voice even. It made him grit his teeth. He wanted to see something from her, something real.

Their clothes disappeared with a thought. "You liked this," he told her, voice tight. "When I held you bound, your breath under my control, my fingers in your quim." She wasn't what he thought she was then, though she still defied his understanding. "You want me to take you. To control you. You want to find someone capable of besting you."

"If I did, that someone still isn't you."

Her words angered him, but he couldn't help but think that it was a calculated barb. She wanted to wound him, to make him react without thinking while she kept her cool. Well, he knew how to shatter her control.

A thought had her slicked and lubricated, the only warning Natasha got before he entered her in a single thrust. She made a soft sound that was a strangled mix of pleasure and anger. "I didn't say you could fuck me."

"You didn't say I couldn't."

"I shouldn't have to," she snarled, turning her head enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. "You are many things, but not a rapist."

Loki pulled on her arms, making her arch her back like a bow. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll leave your bed," he told her. He was being as honest as he knew how to be; this was meant to be a seduction, a way to taunt and lure her back to his side, a reminder that she truly wanted him and not the braying mortals she considered comrades.

Natasha was silent, though her lips were compressed tightly together.

"You want this," Loki said, looking at her. There was no victory in his voice, though his soul sang with delight. "You want to feel my power, you want me inside of you, but you can't let your precious team know of this. You need it, don't you? They don't fascinate you like I do."

Drawing in a slow breath, Natasha still glared at him. "You're very sure of yourself."

"And you still haven't told me no."

Another breath, and then Natasha turned her face away from Loki. "I'm not telling you no. I want you to fuck me."

Loki's lips spread into a wide, pleased grin. _Yes,_ he had this moment of power and pleasure rolled into one, he had her beneath him, tight and wet around his cock. He drew back slowly, then slammed himself back to the hilt. Natasha groaned in pleasure, the movement rocking her forward, dragging her nipples against the sheets. Loki moved at a punishing pace, unable to stop grinning. She was twitching and moaning, head thrown back. Back still drawn like a bow, the sound of her moans shot straight to his groin. He had to close his eyes to maintain his composure, and even then he still wanted to come inside her. She pulled against his hands, as if she could actually wrench herself from his grip, and he could feel her inner walls fluttering around his cock. It felt so good that Loki bit his lip hard enough to bleed to keep from coming right then. Natasha let out a long groan when she tightened and came, meaning Loki didn't have to hold back any longer. He spilled into her depths with a strangled groan of his own.

Letting go of her wrists, Loki watched her collapse onto her bed. His softened cock slipped out of her wet sheath, and he wanted to sprawl out on top of her body. She didn't move to cover herself from his view or clean his seed from her thighs. It was a completely irrational sense of pride that came over him, but he didn't question it too closely. Instead, he stroked her spine gently and leaned over her to whisper in her ear. "You belong to _me,_ little spider." Another stroke along her spine, and his possessive instinct intensified. No one else could have her, no else should touch her like this.

"Unless you want _me_ to fuck _you_ again. You enjoyed that." Natasha lazily turned around beneath him, his hand falling to the valley between her breasts. "I could make you come, give you that peace where even you stop thinking for a moment."

A hot spike of shame and _want_ flooded him. "I don't _need_ you."

"Then why else are you here?" she asked evenly. Natasha grasped his soft, slick cock in her hand, tugging gently. "No one else can give you what I can, can they?"

No, they couldn't. But he didn't want to tell her that, didn't want to give her even a thread of power over him. It was bad enough he _did_ want her dominating him, did want her cradling him and giving him that moment of perfect peace and safety.

There was a moment where she almost seemed to smile at him. "I want that for you, Loki. And I think you want that, too. That's why you come back, but you can't bring yourself to ask me."

"I don't need you," he repeated, but it sounded weak to his own ears. He had no idea what he sounded like to her.

"So why are you here?" she asked him evenly, no inflection in her tone.

"Does it matter to you?" he returned, his grin more like a grimace. She was opaque to him again, which was maddening. Loki knew it was his fault, but he would never accept blame if she gave it to him. He leaned into her until the ends of his hair brushed her cheek. The curls suited her, softening the rather severe look she was giving him. "Had you spent hours pondering the import of my visitation?"

"You'd like it if I did."

She was being deliberately vague, and it sent an irrational spike of anger through him. Others should get that treatment from her, not him. Loki pressed into her, but before he could say anything, she pushed against him. The move startled him, allowing her to flip him onto his back. She held his wrists down, much like he had done to her, and straddled his waist. Loki could feel his seed drop from her body onto his. Natasha leaned down, and it would take minimal effort for him to lean up and take a nipple into his mouth. She rolled her hips over him, but he wasn't quite ready to try sex again. "What is this?" he asked, curious.

"I know why you're here. I'm wondering if _you_ do."

"Oh? You presume to know me so well?"

Now Natasha smiled, slow and sensuous, the kind of smile that promised untold pleasures, that could drive mortal men to succumb to her lure. "About this, I do. You _liked_ what we did. You _wanted_ me to fuck you, _wanted_ me to take control so you wouldn't have to." There was no triumph in her eyes when Loki bared his teeth at her. "But it's not common for Asgard, is it? So you think it's dirty and shameful, and it's easier for you to hate me rather than yourself."

It was eerie how well she cut to the heart of his dilemma.

"But you're on Midgard, Loki. No need to feel that shame. It's just something else to do, just a kink."

Loki nearly snarled, but didn't shake her off. "So certain of yourself, little spider?"

"Of this? Yes." She shifted her hips, dragging her dripping slit over the soft length of his cock. "You want it as much as you deplore it, don't you? That's why you come back. That's why you're here now. You don't want to kill me, and you said it yourself: you want me broken, you want me beaten, you want me bested. Why else, unless you think I've bested you?"

Her voice was soft, lulling, cradling his mind and warring instincts. Loki shivered, teeth bared at her. It wasn't anger, but chagrin and shame. She _knew,_ he was transparent to her, damn her eyes, and he was lost now.

Natasha leaned in a bit farther, and Loki jerked his head upward, closing his lips around one of her pert nipples. "I'll strike you a deal," she said, voice low and husky, making his traitorous cock twitch in anticipation of the filthy, wonderfully depraved things she could do to him. Shifting slightly, she let go of one hand so that she could cradle his head to her breast. "Just between us, Loki. Nothing to do with SHIELD."

He let go of her breast and used his free hand to grasp her hip. "What sort of deal?"

"You want what I can give you," she began, and he was pitifully grateful that she didn't say _need._ "I'm sure there are things you can do for me in return."

"Such as?" he asked archly, fingers pressing into her flesh.

"You possess magic, as you were so quick to point out."

"What need have you for magic?"

"When you visited me last week," Natasha said slowly, running her nails gently along his scalp, "I told you it was inconvenient. A spell caster had been involved, nearly killed me. I needed my rest when you arrived that night."

"Hel's mark on you saved you," Loki guessed.

"Apparently, the spell didn't stick. It slid right off of me and set the lab on fire. I burned."

Loki's hand twitched at her hip. No. She was _his,_ dammit. No one else could harm her. "You appeared whole."

"That's the nature of Hel's gift. I heal."

"But you take damage," he guessed. "It hurt you greatly."

"Yes, it did."

His breath hissed out of his lips in displeasure at the thought. "I'm sorry, little spider."

"Are you?" she asked, no malice or sarcasm in her tone.

He dragged his hand up from her hip along her ribcage. "Yes. You're _my_ spider. Had I known…"

"Would you have healed me? Or cheered him on?"

Chastised, Loki fell silent.

"You've said practitioners on this world mean nothing to you. Probably true, but I don't know any magic. That was nothing I've been trained for."

He recalled her mentions of training, her skills of deception, wiles and assassination. Yes, those skills would not serve her well against magic. "So on such occasions, you would like to call me."

She shifted her hips, again dragging her slit along his limp length. "I'd make it worth your while. You know I can."

"You'd whore yourself to me?"

The insult didn't anger her. "It's what you wanted from me."

"You're certain of yourself."

"You were angry, and you're not as far removed from that anger." True, it was only three days for him since he had burned her. "I can give you what you want."

"You're so certain…"

"You want me to fuck you." There was a no-nonsense tone to her voice that brooked no argument. "My rules, my way, when it doesn't interfere with my work. I tell you if you can come, if you've been good. All you have to think about is pleasing me." His cock twitched in delight at her husky voice, at the thought of her slim fingers bringing him to mind-shattering climax. She had to know his physical reaction to her words, but had no outward response yet.

"Little spider," Loki began.

Natasha pressed on the back of his head, indicating he should suckle her. "Stop talking, Loki. No thinking anymore."

Warring shame and desire flooded through him, but he did close his lips back over her breast. When she made a pleased humming noise, Loki felt inordinately pleased himself. He could do this much, he knew. He could bring her such pleasure, such satisfaction. That's what she really wanted from him. Her hawk didn't share her bed, and no one else fascinated her the way he did. Loki could give her this semblance of control, but she wouldn't break him. He wouldn't allow that again, and he wouldn't be such a wretched creature.

Though some small, fearful part of him was afraid she could do it as effortlessly as before.

She seemed content to let him suckle and knead her torso slightly. It was maddening, making Loki want to shout at her to hurry the hell up.

Loki slid his hand down to her rear, tongue still laving at her peaked nipple. Natasha let out a sigh and leaned back a little. "Other one."

"Your purpose in this?" Loki asked before shifting his head.

"A taste of what's to come."

That sent a deep thrill of anticipation through him as he clamped his mouth over her. She was dangerous and beautiful, constantly challenging him. What else did he have to occupy himself with? He could stop the pitiful excuses for magicians in this realm, earning her gratitude and ministrations upon his person.

It had nothing to do with his emotions, nothing to do with his unholy _need_ for her.

Natasha let go of Loki's head and used that arm to brace herself over him. "I want you to fuck me with your mouth, Loki," she said, voice somewhat breathy but still commanding.

He'd had her bent over, coming as he held her, yet somehow the tables had turned. It should have mattered, but didn't. Loki wanted her desperately; she _saw_ him, knew him better than anyone else despite their tangled relationship. Or perhaps she knew him so well because of it, he couldn't tell the difference.

Loki moved along the length of her body, mouthing the exposed skin. He liked the sound of her sighing breath, the gentle hum that meant she liked his touch. His entire world narrowed to the creamy expanse of her unmarred skin. The curled tangle of pubic hair alerted him to her dripping core, and he tasted his seed as well her musky juices. Loki grasped her ass to hold her steady as he thrust his tongue into her. Natasha's sighing was louder now, more guttural. He could feel her trembling, and he redoubled his efforts. She liked it, wanted more of it, and he wanted her to call out his name when she came.

When she did say his name, a groan that got his cock to ache and twitch, Loki sucked on her clit. She arched, hips pressing down into his face. He pleased her, he pleased her, she was coming and trembling because she liked what he was doing. "Don't stop," she gasped. "Not yet."

He licked at her, easing her down from her orgasm. Loki lapped at her juices, licking her clean without her asking. Loki made a protesting sound when she shakily lifted off of him, but Natasha shushed him. "So good," she crooned, reaching down to caress his cheek. "You can be wonderful if you choose to be," she said, moving. She closed her hand over his cock, stroking him to full hardness. "Your reward."

Loki moaned when her mouth descended over his cock, sucking at the head. Pleasure shot through his entire body, and he _knew_ then that she was truly pleased with him. "I want," he moaned, nearly incoherent.

"You want me to fuck you?" Natasha asked, and her words sent a thrill through him. He didn't even stop to think how wrong it was, how quickly he had fallen under her spell.

He let out an incoherent moan of assent, then of disappointment when she let go of his cock. That turned into a hiss of pleasure as she sank down on him. "There's more than one way to fuck you, Loki. I can give it to you hard or soft, terrible or sensual, and you know I'll give you what you need." It was her soft, commanding voice, the one that gave him a sense of comfort in this state of mind. Loki moaned, overwhelmed by the sound of her voice and the feel of her over him. He reached up to fondle her breasts, grinning in amusement when her breath caught. "Oh, that was _naughty."_

Before he could ask what the penalty was, she reached down as she lifted off of him to squeeze his cock. He hissed at the sharp bolt of pain, but even that felt almost delicious and sweet.

Smirking at his groan, Natasha moved around his sprawled body to lick at the shell of his ear. "Interesting. Oh, I can have such _fun_ with you, Loki." She scratched lightly at his chest, making him squirm and reach for her. "No. You can't touch me now. _I_ touch _you._ I reward or punish you. Choose wisely."

_Choose wisely._

Clever, clever mortal. His respect for her grew.

Loki grasped her sheets in his fists. "Reward me."

"Good boy," she crooned, and he nearly shuddered with joy at her words. Natasha sank down over his aching cock and began to ride him. Loki groaned at the sight of her, especially when she reached behind her to grasp his thighs for balance. "I can be so good to you," she breathed, and he wanted _so much_ to be good for her, to please her, to make her happy.

He grunted, close to release, and she dug her fingernails into his thighs. "No," she said sharply. "I come before you do, Loki. You have to wait."

Growling with need, Loki grit his teeth and tried to hold off on his release. Natasha's breath quickened, and she was a beautiful sight to behold. "I can't," he gasped. "I can't hold on…"

 _"Wait,"_ she commanded. He struggled to comply, but couldn't. He came with a soft cry of dismay, knowing he would be seen as bad.

Natasha heaved a dramatic sigh. "Well, now I'm going to have to punish you," she purred.

Loki thrummed with anticipation as Natasha slid off of him and pulled him into position. She set herself over his mouth and grasped the headboard with both hands. "No magic, no hands. Just your mouth, and you keep going until I tell you to stop."

"Hardly punishment," Loki drawled, grinning up at her. He hissed when she reached down to yank on his hair sharply.

"You'd better start," she intoned, tugging again.

He did, licking into her steadily. Following the tension in her thighs and the rapid breathing, Loki brought her to orgasm and kept right on going. Natasha's breaths were high pitched, almost like squeaks, making him smile. She didn't tell him to stop, so he simply shifted locations when the tip of his tongue grew numb and sore from the constant contact. Then his jaw began to ache, but still she rode his face with no sign that she was ready to stop. His stupid body was even starting to get aroused again, aching and tired though he was. Natasha's stamina was amazing, especially when he wasn't allowed magic to augment his skills. He couldn't help but whine a bit, and she tugged sharply on his hair. This time, she didn't let go, but kept him in place and ground down into his face, her own breathing a whiny, needy sound.

Finally, she hissed and yanked on his hair, jerking his mouth away from her even as she cried "Enough, stop, stop, too much."

Though he was tempted to pursue her, his jaw ached badly and his tongue was wholly numb.

After a moment to catch her breath, Natasha gingerly moved to kneel beside Loki. Pulling him up to a seated position, she cradled him to her chest. Now her fingers soothed his scalp, especially where she had yanked on his hair. Loki could hear her erratic heartbeat and feel the slight tremor in her limbs, and there was that irrational flash of pride again. He had done that to her. He had pleasured her until she was oversensitized, until she could probably still feel his ghostly touch on her skin.

She made soft soothing sounds, and he relaxed into her embrace. "You were good, Loki," she murmured. His spirit sang with praise, the world still all soft and fuzzy about the edges. "There's a naughty streak in there, hm? We'll need to work on that."

Oh, again and again and again. The anticipation nearly choked him, for all he didn't understand it.

Natasha continued to stroke him, until shivers wracked his body and he had to clutch her tightly for some kind of balance. "What is this?" he heard himself ask, and he was horrified by the frightened tone he heard in his voice.

"Seems like you're crashing hard," Natasha murmured, holding on tightly when he tried to push her away. "This happened last time, didn't it? That's why you were so angry with me afterward. I didn't care for you enough."

That she took the blame baffled him. He had raged at her that he didn't need her, that she was a useless mortal, that he could destroy her. It never once occurred to him that she might actually accept her role in what had happened, how bereft and broken he felt.

"What's happening… There are different words for it, different ways people describe it. Subspace, usually. A state of mind where your will doesn't matter as much as the person you're with." Natasha smiled ruefully at his start of surprise. "I told you, it's not unheard of in this realm. You dropped into it so quickly, and now you're crashing out of it. I didn't know last time. I shouldn't have left you alone, not until you were ready, not until I'd helped you back."

The softer, fuzzier edges were gone. Now a sharp, ugly clarity settled over him, and he wanted to push her viciously away, pull his anger around himself like a cloak and rail at her for what she had done. But Natasha refused to budge, holding him until the quaking stopped and he no longer felt like every nerve was grating against sandpaper.

"And this?" he asked, glad to hear his voice was finally even.

What in the nine realms had just happened?

Natasha smoothed his hair back, and for an impossible moment he was reminded of Frigga, caring for him when he was ill as a child. _My sweet boy,_ she had said, warmth in her tone and a tender smile on her face. _How can we make you feel better?_

Loki wanted to bury his face in the valley between her breasts and cry. He wanted to slide beneath her skin and hide in the marrow of her bones. He wanted her to bury him deep in an isolated spot and never dig him up again.

But he exhaled slowly. "Tell me of this Midgard ritual, then," he demanded.

"No ritual," Natasha replied. He could hear the smile in her voice. "Sometimes, it's good to let go, to give up control. Someone else is in charge, and you only have to follow the rules. You're safe that way, protected. And when the moment is done, you can take control again."

Her voice was soft, almost reverent. "You've done this, then?"

"Not like this, not exactly," she told him, shaking her head. No, her control was nearly absolute, too precious for her to hand over. "But I know that this is a gift, not one you give lightly."

He recoiled at her words, but she didn't let him retreat, damn her.

"Let go of me," he thundered.

"Not like this," she told him. Running her nails down his spine, she sighed when he shivered. "Almost back, but not quite."

"How do you judge that, then?" he asked, a snarling, angry edge to his voice.

"By the way you feel," she replied easily. "By how you respond to me."

She knew him, inside and out. Perhaps she didn't need a thread of insanity within her to predict him. The thought was comforting and galling at once. How dare a mortal claim to understand a god? How dare she?

Natasha ran her lips along the shell of his ear, and it still felt as if his skin was on fire. "And now you can start anew. Plan and scheme, maybe answer a few questions. This is the deal I make."

The blasted, thrice-damned deal of hers. He had nearly forgotten. Her offer was a tantalizing lure to be sure. She used herself as bait, and he was readily seeking her out.

"Yes," he heard himself say in horror. "I accept."

No, he did _not_ accept! This peaceful languor in his body would be the death of him. She was warping him, reshaping him into something other than the god of mischief and chaos. While she claimed no such thing, she would domesticate him.

"Think about it," Natasha advised him. "Crashing from a high is _never_ a good time to make decisions, and this has to be fair."

"Fair?" he echoed dumbly.

"You want this from me," Natasha began evenly. Oh, yes, he most certainly did. "But you also want to dominate me." Ah. Yes. _That._ It was rather a given that he would. "So our deal would have to cover both."

Loki couldn't fathom what she was saying at first. It was too tantalizing an offer to refuse.

Eventually, she would do this again. She would break him, chisel away defenses until he was empty. Then she would pull some of him back together, and cradle him like a child until he could rage again. And at other times, he could do the same to her, and she would accept any vicious or depraved thing he could think of.

Delicious.

"My answer is still yes," Loki replied, voice firm. The easy languor was still with him, but it was less unsettling and terrifying than before.

Natasha smiled as she kissed his cheek. "Then we have a deal."

For now, Loki had no intention of breaking it, either.

***

Natasha was starting to feel as though her suite in Avengers Tower was the place to be for wayward Asgardians. Returning from yet another SHIELD med check to assess her healing rate, she found a tall, stately woman in a gold and green gown, blonde ringlets and tasteful jewelry. She turned, a fond smile on her face. "You must be Natasha."

"Frigga, I presume," Natasha replied, approaching the goddess. The smile grew, so the woman likely wasn't here to chastise her or kill her. Even so, she didn't take off her leather jacket, which hid the holster at the small of her back. It hadn't been there for SHIELD's benefit, but her own; the medical clearance she just received meant she could be sent back into the field to hunt down more AIM labs.

"You've enchanted Loki," Frigga began without preamble, that fond smile still on her face as she looked at Natasha. "Thank you."

 _I didn't do it for you,_ Natasha almost said, but instead, she inclined her head slightly. "What makes you think he's enchanted?"

"Thor came to me on several occasions, concerned for your welfare. And then with your request to speak with Hel after a mission went badly." Frigga waited for her nod of assent. "Loki is very angry and hotheaded. He wasn't always that way. He once was…" Frigga trailed off, gaze turned inward. "Thor said you know about his true origins."

"I do. Whatever SHIELD knows, I've been informed of." Not to mention whatever things she had been able to glean for herself along the way.

"Odin thought to avert war. I thought to have a son." There was fierce undercurrent to her tone, pain and pride all rolled into one. Natasha recognized it well, given how often Loki used it. "I lost a child not long before that battle." Her voice was brittle, pained. "I didn't agree with my husband for the sake of his plans for peace, whatever they may have been. I agreed because Loki was an infant abandoned, and I longed for a child. I saw him that day, and I loved him. Instantly, without a thought, without regrets. I brought him into my heart, suckled him, named him, raised him as my son. I taught him magic, the ways of _seidr_ and walking Yggdrasil. I watched him grow, and I watched his heart break too many times, unable to do a thing to stop it."

"You're the Queen."

"And in our world, my place is not to countermand Odin's orders." Her lips quirked slightly when Natasha gave her a questioning glance. "Not openly."

"So why do you think he's… enchanted?"

"You preoccupy him. You fascinate him." Frigga's gaze on her was soft. "He can forget some of his rage with you. Natasha, you have no idea how I longed for that to happen."

She let out a breath. "Being on the receiving end of it, I can imagine."

"You're a match for him. I think that's what he needs."

"How can you tell?"

"You went to see Hel," Frigga said simply, spreading her hands. "Willingly, to talk to her, not to plead for riches or for your life, but the souls of innocents you could not save. This concept has been foreign to Loki for some time. I don't think he understands that anymore."

 _Do you really believe there are innocents?_

"You don't believe me?" Frigga asked, eyebrows raised. "He hasn't been challenged in a very long time, Natasha, and you do that for him."

"That I can definitely do," Natasha agreed. "I wouldn't say I was afraid of him at first. I held a lot more caution, though."

"What changed?"

"I understood what I was dealing with. There's a fair amount of instability, so he's unpredictable. But all of that aside, I know what I'm dealing with. I may be concerned, but I'm not afraid anymore."

"Hel's gift likely helps," Frigga commented with a smile.

"Well, he did burn me when he was angry."

Frigga looked upset at that news. "Thor didn't tell me—"

"I didn't tell Thor. It would upset him. He was angry enough with Loki for trying to turn everyone on the team against me. It wasn't very difficult to do with the World Council. They didn't like me very much, anyway," she added for Frigga's benefit.

She sighed. "I was disappointed to hear of his betrayal of you. I had hoped for more, that he had found a place he could feel whole… We _all_ had such hopes that he would do well. Your point to Thor was accurate. Containing him would never work, but working with him is helpful."

Natasha rather doubted that Frigga would want to hear the details of deal she had just struck with Loki. "He has to be motivated enough for it to work."

"I suppose we've never quite figured out what would motivate Loki enough. For a long time it was simply to learn, to excel. But then he drew away from me, and I thought he was close to Thor. It seemed that way for a long time." Her smile was tinged with sadness. "It appears that things changed and we never knew it."

Natasha nodded, remembering her conversation with Thor about "imagined slights." Frigga would never have known about it; from what she understood, parents were always the last to know about sibling rivalries of that magnitude.

Whatever Frigga would have said next was interrupted by the arrival of Loki, who materialized on Natasha's left, in the corner of the room. He blinked when he saw Frigga, but otherwise showed no surprise. "Slumming it with the mortals?" he asked, a snide undertone to his voice.

Frigga's smile was frozen in place. "Loki. You look well."

"No thanks to the Allfather," he replied, a manic-looking smile on his face. Natasha could see the tightness in his eyes and the way he stood at attention.

She looked to the portal behind him. "There are places to go," she said softly with a hint of a smile on her lips, eyes flicking to the hideaway behind him. Natasha could see that the riotous mess was gone. "You've learned quite a bit of that over the years."

"Why are you here, Frigga?" he asked, voice soft yet cutting.

The Queen didn't move, still holding her regal posture, but Natasha could see her fingers twitch slightly. "You are my son, Loki."

"I was _stolen."_

"You are my son," Frigga repeated. "I could not intervene, and the presence of Asgard angers you. But I hoped to hear how you fared."

"Through a mortal."

"Through a _friend,"_ Frigga corrected, looking at Loki pointedly. "One you abused most grievously, one it does not appear you have tried to ask forgiveness from."

Loki snorted, shaking his head. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

Frigga stepped forward, hands open at her sides. "Perhaps. Your thoughts are not mine, your actions shrouded from view. But you are alone, my son, when you do not have to be."

Natasha intervened before he could do more than pull his lips back in a snarl of rage. _His rage is less with you,_ Frigga had just said. Loki looked at her hand pulling on his arm, the same angry expression on his face, and she looked back at him with her smooth, unconcerned face. "Give your mother a hug and she'll go, Loki."

"You cannot command me!"

"I don't think you'd want to discuss the details of our deal in front of her." Natasha lofted an eyebrow at him, and he flushed. "Didn't think so."

Visibly overjoyed when Loki stiffly nodded at her, Frigga swept him up in a tight embrace. "You are my son," she whispered into his hair. "No matter the origins, no matter what anyone says to you. You are _my son."_

For a moment, it almost seemed as though Loki mouthed "mother" against her neck, but he remained silent. He stepped back immediately when Frigga let go of him, his face an expressionless mask that mirrored Natasha's. She could see that Frigga's eyes were glistening when she looked her, and the queen mouthed "thank you" before disappearing in a shimmering green haze.

It was silent for exactly five seconds after the haze dissipated. Then Loki rounded on Natasha, fist raised and eyes flashing with rage. _"You cannot command me!"_

"She loves you," Natasha replied simply, not backing down. "For better or for worse, no matter what heinous things you've done, she loves you."

Loki flinched and let his fist drop. "You've said love is for children."

"It is. You're her child."

He turned away from her bland tone, and she heard a hitch in his breath. It was likely that no one else in the entire universe would ever hear it. There was something like trust between them at this point, though Natasha didn't think it could be easily named.

"I am not of her blood. I was stolen. You know this."

"You can choose to accept her or not. She's already chosen you."

He turned to face her, composed and still again. "I did not come here to speak of her to you."

"So why did you come here?"

"As you said, our bargain."

"So speak."

In the pause, Natasha finally took off her jacket, moving to hang it up carefully in the front closet of her suite. Putting her back to Loki, she knew he could see the holster at the small of her back, but he didn't comment on it. They both knew bullets would be useless if he used his magic to block them. It was the principle of the thing, she supposed.

"You have said I should have time to think on our bargain," he said when she turned around.

"Do you regret accepting?" Natasha asked, voice neutral. Her gut churned; if he refused it now, what other hold would she have over him?

"No." His eyes didn't leave hers, and she wondered what he was thinking. "I do not regret it, do not renege on our bargain. But you did not wholly explain terms."

"That wasn't a good time to hammer them out."

He winced slightly, just a twitch in the corner of his eyes and mouth. She wondered if it was because it referenced his subdrop or because of the word "hammer." He still didn't care for Thor, and was probably only here because Thor was in Asgard.

"No, there was not. I wish to rectify that."

"Fine. What are your requirements?" she asked formally, starting to remove her holster. His eyes tracked the movement, tongue at the corner of his mouth. He was fascinated with her, and she could probably use that somehow.

He still owed her, after all. He owed her a lot.

"You said it would cover your domination of my person as well as mine over yours." She nodded, expression solemn. He seemed to have difficulty getting the words out. "My first requirement is that the others aren't to know. Your superiors aren't to discuss this."

"It's none of their business. This isn't a job."

A corner of Loki's lips quirked, and he looked almost pleased by that remark. "So what is it?"

"What's what?"

"This bargain of yours? What is it, if it isn't a job given to you?"

Containment. Damage control.

She said neither, but approached him slowly and put a hand on his chest. "Don't you want to know what _this_ is?" His eyes dragged across her face slowly, as if trying to discover what underhanded thing she was about to do next. Good. "I do," she purred, lips quirked slightly.

There was a slight flare in his nostrils, and he gently rested his hand over hers. "Perhaps."

"No perhaps about it," she said with a smile. "What are your other requirements?"

Loki's lips parted; perhaps he had forgotten about the other requirements with her contact? That was flattering, but Natasha doubted that was the reason. "Would you always need… tools?" he asked after a moment.

"If the moment required it," she replied, no inflection in her tone. "I didn't use any last time."

His eyes closed for the briefest of moments, more like a slow blink, and he nodded. "That is acceptable. I have magic to rely on when it is my turn."

Considering he really didn't know what he was getting himself into, Natasha nodded at him and decided to prod him in a more useful direction. "How do you feel about bodily fluids? I assume blood is okay, given the fact that you've cut me and seemed to enjoy that. How about harm? Pain? Humiliation sometimes comes with servitude, but is that acceptable also?"

He was very still, especially with the word _humiliation._ "I am a god." He may have wanted to go for menacing or forceful, but it came out as a statement of fact.

"Yes. And within the confines of the scene, what are you comfortable with?"

That very obviously threw him, and his brows furrowed for a moment. "What has occurred already between us," he said slowly. "Anything further must be determined over time."

"Fair," Natasha agreed with a polite smile. She slid her hand down his chest and out from beneath his hand. "I have files to catch up on…"

"I wish to begin now."

Natasha lifted one eyebrow in surprise. "Oh? And if this is not a convenient time for me? I had said that this arrangement can't interfere with my work. Unlike you, I don't come and go as I please, exactly. I still have duties to see to."

He didn't respond to the edge in her tone. "I could manipulate time," he suggested, giving her a charming smile.

She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. _Men._ "That's not the point. It would be best to have a prearranged time and place. Scheduled, so that I make sure there are no conflicts in my interests, and you can make sure to be there on time."

"Somewhere you can travel, of course. You have no working of _seidr."_ He still had on his charming smile, but Natasha could see the strain he was under to maintain that and not simply command her. _Good boy,_ she thought. _You can be trained after all._

"I've let go of the apartment downtown," she said, reaching for her tablet. "It was compromised," she added when he gave her a curious look.

"By me."

"By you," she confirmed with a sharp nod. "So I'll need to find somewhere new. I'll have to let you know when I find a good location."

"Surely you have alternatives."

"None appropriate for you," she said blandly, flicking the switch for her tablet. "I'll need some way to contact you, of course."

Loki grabbed her arm in a tight grip sure to leave bruises later. "I will give you spells. There is no preparation necessary. You have done your work here, after all."

Letting out a sigh of exasperation, Natasha peeled his fingers from her arm. "If you're that desperate to start, then take your clothes off."

It clearly startled him. "What?"

"If this happens now, take off your clothes. _Now._ I have shit to do, and you're not on my list."

He responded to the irritated edge in her tone, peeling off the layers of antiquated clothing quickly. Eyes locked to her indifferent expression, he stood bare before her, then snapped his fingers almost as an afterthought. Natasha could feel the snap and settling of magic around here, likely the spell that would seal off the room to outsiders. "Little spider—"

 _"Don't."_ Her voice was soft, but he reacted as if struck. "This isn't a time to play cute or coy, Loki. You do as I say, or you can leave. Those are your options. Choose wisely."

Expression shuttered, he nodded sharply. "Very well, then. That would be your condition."

"Your choice?"

Natasha believed he was baffled by her indifference, much as he had been on several occasions before his breakdown. _You don't respond the way I think you will. Why is that?_

"I will concede to your wishes," he said finally. His hands were curled into loose fists at his side. Not angry yet, then, but he would be very soon.

She moved to her sofa and sat down. Snapping her fingers, she pointed to the floor in front of her. "Hands and knees on the floor. Now."

Confused, Loki did as she said, and Natasha put her feet up, boots resting along his spine. Her login screen was already on, so she logged into her SHIELD portal to pull up the files she would need to reacquaint herself with. He made a discomfited noise, as if to protest being treated as a footstool. Natasha lifted one heel an inch and brought it down swiftly, making him grunt in pain. "Conceding to my wishes means doing what I tell you. Right now, this is what I want from you. Understood?"

Loki let out a slow breath, obviously trying to keep his temper in check. "Understood," he finally said, letting his eyes shut.

Oh, she would likely pay for this later. But a deal was a deal, and he was complying for the moment. She would deal with consequences when they came. In the meantime, she had actual work to do.

***  
***


	3. Choose Wisely

"You are cruel."

Natasha looked at him, expression bland. Loki wanted to strike it from her face, wanted to make her see how she demeaned him, how she unmanned him so carelessly. _But you chose such debasement,_ a traitorous voice reminded him. _You asked her to do it._

"You didn't come to me to be kind," she pointed out, as if the interaction meant nothing to her. Perhaps it didn't. He had been cruel enough to her in his own way, had stripped her bare, attempted to undermine her agency and remove her allies. She owed him nothing after his treatment of her, yet still she touched him willingly, did not try to strike him down. They were now in a safe house she created for this very purpose, so that his privacy would be ensured. Natasha behaved as if she didn't care who knew of the liaison, but her Hawk had to care. He would have to be affronted by the attention she paid to this endeavor. At least, Loki hoped so. He could then pretend this entire affair was part of a grand plan he had yet to concoct.

"No," Loki said finally, circling her. "You are not kind."

"You didn't come here to be coddled, to be worshipped, to be attended to by a sycophant. You could create those minions if you really needed them." Her gaze was cool, assessing, and Loki wanted to strike her down for it. "You're here because you're patently self destructive, and you have nothing else left to lose."

He wanted to deny the words, wanted to tear her tongue out by its roots. Instead, he was fixed in place, giving her a level look. "It is perhaps just as well you cannot be a mother," he said, not sure why he chose _that_ of all things to say.

"I'm not maternal," she told him flatly. No, it was not an insult to her. "I'm not nurturing, I'm not kind, I'm not affectionate. I am what I was made to be."

"And what is that?"

"A blade," she replied.

Loki didn't see the knife in her hand until it was nearly at his throat. "So the game is on."

"Did it ever really end?"

His smile was a shark's baring of teeth. "I suppose not."

She was not a mother, not the kind to endlessly forgive as Frigga did. There was untapped anger simmering beneath her skin as well, vengeance laced into her very bones. Yet it did not rule her, and Loki couldn't fathom why not. Rage was a comfortable friend, one he knew well, but at times (only at times, he refused to acknowledge more than that) Loki could not see past it. Natasha was tightly controlled, trusting very few people in the world. He was not one of them, could never be one of them. He had all but ensured that with his behavior. Yet here she was in close proximity to him, baring herself to his gaze, his touch, his magic, his venomous tongue. She did not break beneath the constant barrage, but bent and swayed, dodging his blows to return with ones of her own.

_Why didn't she break?_

The question nagged at him like a sore tooth, and he worried at it constantly. He should by rights be plotting something underhanded. A strike against one of the realms, a ruse to draw out the Avengers, a ploy to wound Asgard. Yet he could not, preoccupied by this one question he could not answer that suddenly seemed so important.

_Why didn't she break?_

He had almost been close to her, had almost cared for her. That was a far cry from wanting to destroy her, wanting to best her in every way possible. Oh, that urge still existed, but it warred equally with a respect he hadn't expected her to earn.

The knife pressed against the soft skin of his throat, just enough to raise a line of blood. "You have skill with a blade. Did you think you could wield me?" she asked, voice low and just a touch husky, just enough to get his stupid cock to twitch in anticipation of her touch.

"Do you think a blade will bring me to heel?" he asked instead of answering.

"A blade will bring you pause," she replied, echoing his speech pattern slightly. "And that's what you want. Pause. Peace. Quiet. A time when you don't have to think," she murmured, drawing the knife down his throat, "or scheme," she continued, drawing the knife further down to his collarbone, "or posture." The point of the knife dug deep into the hollow between his collarbones, right above his sternum. Blood rose easily from his skin, dripping down his chest. Natasha smeared it into his skin with her opposite hand, appearing pleased that he remained very still under this attention.

"I bested you with a blade," he challenged.

"You used magic," she pointed out. "Could you beat me in a fair fight?"

He was silent, thinking. Perhaps, perhaps not. He wouldn't have fought fair, and he doubted she would have either. The fact that she used her body to distract him then and had viciously sought to disable him was proof of that. "We both have skill."

"So you don't know."

Loki chafed under her bland tone, thinking perhaps this was worse than having to bend over and have her use his body as she saw fit. Her words were blades, as sharp as the one in her hand. He was flayed wide in front of her, and he had put himself into that position. Should he protest, the game was over and he would have no reason to see her again.

That thought almost caused him physical pain. He refused to think of why it would be so.

He realized she was carving into him much as he had carved into her. "Marking your territory?"

"Making sure you don't forget why you're here."

Looking down, she had etched an arrow into his flesh. Rage bubbled up along with his blood, and his eyes flashed to her face. "You would think this a joke? Your Hawk could not strike me, so you will do it for him?"

"I've been told I pierce to the heart of the matter," Natasha said coolly.

With effort, Loki pushed down his rage and the urge to let a blast of magic loose. "In this case, what would that be?"

The smile Natasha gave him could very well have mirrored his own maniacal smiles, and he managed to suppress his shock at the sight of it. "You'll see."

At her direction, he knelt down on the plain laminate flooring of the empty bedroom in the safe house. It was an unassuming one bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a building in a rundown neighborhood in Astoria, Queens. That was a quick subway ride across the river, unless Loki wished to gift her with a portal device, and anonymous enough of a neighborhood that no one would pay attention to their comings and goings. It was sparsely furnished, though the security system was state of the art and custom installed as soon as Natasha purchased it through proxy personae. There was no bed in this room, and he had wondered why she hadn't bothered to obtain one. She had funds, various accounts known and unknown to her superior officers. She could make the apartment look however she wished.

Right now, she wished for barren and nearly lifeless. He wondered at it.

Natasha trailed the flat of her blade across his shoulder blades. "Bow your head," she commanded, and he found himself following her words without question. It wasn't the same sensation that she had termed subspace, not exactly. More like curiosity at where this would lead, how far would she take this game before he tried to turn the tables.

The edge bit into the skin of his back, though he did not hiss. He couldn't figure out what she was carving into his back, what design she would want to etch into him. It wasn't runic, didn't follow patterns of any magic he had learned or seen. She didn't know magic anyway.

"Stay where you are."

She left the room, heels of her boots clicking on the floor. He was naked, exposed to the chilly air, and he could hear the swish of her nanomesh armor as she sashayed out of the door. Loki could imagine the sway of her hip, the swing in her hair as she turned. He wanted to gather her hair up in his fist, pulling her mouth toward his as he unzipped the armor. He wanted her naked beneath him, panting with want, expression open to his view again. He wanted to see her as she saw him now, wanted to delve into the secrets she held dear and expose them.

He doubted now that he had ever known anything true about her at all.

Loki hissed when she returned and poured liquid over the cuts. They stung, the fragrant oils sinking into his flesh and making it feel as though he was on fire. He couldn't stay kneeling in a still position, not with his back in so much pain.

"Lie down," she said, no inflection to let him know if she cared about the pain she was inflicting on him. "On your back," she commanded when he moved to lie on his stomach. He had no choice to obey if he wanted this game to continue. Gods, she was cruel, she was beautiful, she could be perfect if he would ever be able to turn her from SHIELD's graces.

"I should kill you for this," he gasped, fire licking along his nerve endings.

"But you won't," she replied easily. The nanomesh catsuit was unzipped part of the way, allowing him to see the pale blue camisole beneath it. He reached up to touch the cheap cotton, but she slapped his hand down. "You don't touch me today."

"What was in that?"

"I've been paying attention to lessons," she told him, not directly answering the question. "I've been in contact with some very powerful people who know a lot about you."

Frigga. Hel. Most of the other magic users he knew of would never share secrets with a mortal.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried not to focus on the pain. "Work past it," she told him, voice soft. Oh, she could soothe him very well if she chose to, belying the comment that she had no maternal instinct. She could be, if she chose to be.

_Choose wisely._

Natasha valued her sense of self. She valued being uncompromised. She valued innocence and balance. Justice. Choice. There was a rigid code of honor she ascribed to, though it was hardly conventional by mortal standards.

Loki could hear her take off the armor, but he didn't dare think it meant she would go easy on him. She was just as dangerous unclothed as she was clothed. He chose to subject himself to this, he chose to try to unravel her. He wanted to see why she did not break, though she gave the appearance of it when he shattered her illusions about him.

"Do you hate me, Natasha?" he gasped, remembering how he was not to call her "little spider" in these sessions. He could if he was in control of her, but he hadn't asked for the privilege to do so yet. He didn't understand this need he had, didn't understand the sensations he desired. He wanted to know that first, master the impulses and see if he could direct them at her. Or so he told himself. He wasn't entirely sure if it was truth or not.

Her lips were right at his ear, tongue flicking the earlobe playfully. "Not as much as you hate yourself, Loki. Don't think I don't know that."

The pain redoubled when he opened his mouth intending to say something cutting. Instead of words, a tortured howl escaped him. "What have you done?"

She ran her fingers over the blood on his chest from the arrow she carved there. Wherever her fingers touched, the pain eased down to tolerable levels. "What you wanted me to do."

"No, I didn't ask for this," he gasped, eyes flying open.

A soft nimbus of magic surrounded her like a halo, a soft silver light that gave her skin a glow. No mortal could have seen it, and Loki rather doubted that she even knew it was there. The oils she had poured onto his skin must have triggered it, though the kind of magic it was existed outside of his knowledge.

"You understand pain, Loki." He could see her stretched out beside him, hand hovering over the center of his chest. There were strands connecting her palm to his sternum, right at the tip of her carved arrow. His blood traced the lines of power across his skin; how could she not see it? What kind of game was she playing? Why was he still allowing this?

He hissed and howled, back arching up as he tried to contain it. His chest made contact with her palm, and only there did the pain lessen. Everywhere else was exquisite agony, fire and sizzling lightning pain burning through him from the inside out.

"You have a ledger, too," she said, her voice a soft croon. That and her hand were the only anchors keeping him in place, and he clung to them like lifelines. "This is your accounting, Loki. We have to do this before we can truly begin."

Hel, then. Frigga would never put him through this.

He screamed, finally unable to contain the torturous pain with silence any longer. Her lips were at his ear, her hand on his chest. _Ride it out,_ her touch told him. _It will be worth it when it's all over,_ and he had to trust in this. She wouldn't want the game to end too soon, she wouldn't want him in pieces. It wasn't her way, it was his.

An indeterminate eternity later, Loki collapsed, his throat raw from the screams he did and didn't make. His entire body was wrung out, left limp and boneless. It was worse than the first time she had taken him, because she barely had anything to do with it. Natasha had laid a hand on him in mercy, and it was the weight of his own sins that he could not bear.

He faced her, eyes glassy. His blood and the mystical oil blend had smeared across the floor, her arms and the top of her cotton camisole. "Natasha," he rasped.

She leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead in a chaste, gentle kiss. "And now you know what your ledger looks like."

Knowledge burned into him, the names and faces of all his millions of victims, Jotun, Asgardian, Midgardian and outworlder. The last name on his list was hers.

Loki saw her rise and strip off the soiled camisole and panties. "Now…"

"Now you choose. No illusions, no lies. It's your ledger. You choose to keep it in the red or if you balance it out. Now you see what you've done, and the rest is up to you." She retrieved her armor and started to get into it. "You have until next time to think on it. Our deal still stands."

"Why this today, then? Why not any number of other things you could do to me?"

"I am a blade," she said simply. "Now I get to choose what threads I sever. You haven't chosen. You've _reacted,_ for all that you've schemed. Even against me, it was because I got to you first. You were reacting, not acting."

His chest constricted as she zipped up the catsuit. "If you are a blade, what am I?"

"A cannon." Her lips quirked slightly, a private joke he didn't understand. "A glass cannon, given the right kind of blow." She checked her blades and flash bombs, eyes twinkling in amusement, not caring that he could see it. "Perhaps we can change that. After all, I wasn't always a blade."

"What were you?"

Something shifted in her eyes, though her expression was the same. "A wind-up ballerina." The smile on her face was brittle. "And I will never be that again."

She left him in the apartment. It took him hours to regain strength enough to sit up, hours more to crawl outside the bedroom. His clothes were carefully folded, his weapons polished and placed precisely and securely where they were supposed to be. The alarms had been set, protecting him from the outside world, his own proximity and silencing wards still engaged. On the coffee table in front of the simple living room set was a small glass bottle, ornately carved with runes and stoppered with a silver stopper. Crawling to it, he examined the runes.

Hel's doing. _Conscience,_ the inscription read on the stopper. _Heart_ was inscribed on the bottle. Its contents were nearly empty, and Loki closed his eyes as he leaned his forehead against the coffee table.

Natasha called it a ledger, but that was merely a physical emblem to represent her personal accounting. Now she inflicted it upon Loki.

He was too exhausted to seethe. That would have to come later.

***

Natasha was sure that Loki would come after her, supernatural guns blazing. She received her next assignment, a deep undercover mission as a wealthy heiress looking to invest some of the millions she had just inherited. It was how AIM seemed to be getting some of its funding for above board projects, but once she had an in for a legitimate office location, she should be able to find one of their research facilities and track where the money was actually going. There was an actual Ten Rings terrorist group that SHIELD was looking into, but there was some noise underground that AIM was looking to retake its former place in the terrorist tech in a big way. It would require a lot of funding for R&D to develop a new weapon, though various teams were investigating the groups that were developing serums based on Extremis.

She was packing in her suite when Loki appeared. He was dressed in his armor, knives in holsters and a deadly glint in his eyes. He slammed the glass bottle onto her table, watching her closely the entire time.

Not even flinching, Natasha looked at him evenly. "You look better."

"Did you even know what was in that?"

"No." Loki looked nonplused by the flat statement. "I was simply told it would help you to see as I do." She shrugged. "It smelled nice and didn't seem caustic, so I thought the most it would do was sting like a bitch." At his irritated nostril flare, Natasha heaved a dramatic sigh. "Haven't you ever heard of pain play?" Now he seemed confused, so she shook her head and continued her packing. "Of course you haven't. Anyway, it seemed to actually do _something._ So if you see as I do, then you should know what your ledger looks like."

 _"I don't want it!"_ Loki hissed, furious.

"Of course you don't," Natasha replied evenly, looking up from her suitcase. "No one does."

"Erase the spell."

"Can't. I don't even know what triggered it in the first place."

"You did a spell you don't even know how to reverse?" Loki raged, hands clenched into tight fists and teeth bared at her as if he was an angry wolf.

"Please," Natasha scoffed. She moved to her dresser, her back to Loki as she rummaged around for appropriate underwear to bring. "Hel doesn't actually want you dead. If she did, I'm sure she'd find you and kill you herself."

Loki grabbed her arm to spin her around, and she could feel the rise of static from his skin. It was almost like the smell of ozone around her, the little hairs at the back of her neck standing on end from his contact. A little more anger channeled into his hands and he would burn her again. She thought perhaps he was trying to control his temper, but she couldn't be exactly sure in that exact moment. "Hel controls the realm of the dead."

"Yes. Everyone goes there eventually. Even I will. She said she'd welcome me there with open arms." Natasha pointedly shook off his touch. "Until then, I have work to do."

"This?"

"I'll be gone for a while. So you have time to think about what you want from our arrangement."

Blinking in surprise, the electric static abruptly died. "How long will you be gone?"

"I can't say. Sometimes these kinds of missions last for months. One lasted for nearly two years once. It wasn't a particularly pleasant persona, either, so I definitely noticed that one."

Loki scowled. "You cannot leave now."

"I have my orders."

The look on his face was monstrous. "I forbid it."

"You can't."

He took a breath, as if about to say something in a thunderous tone of voice. "I have a job, Loki," Natasha said matter of factly. "That comes first. Remember our rules? You chose to follow them, if you recall."

"You and your _rules,"_ Loki sneered, grabbing her again. "They will bind you."

"And you'd love to watch," she replied sweetly, yanking her arm out of his grasp to pack the underwear. She looked over the contents, mentally calculating that she had about a week's worth of acceptable clothing. There was a SHIELD account she could tap to fund other appropriate outfits once she was settled into the house she was "inheriting."

Loki spun her around to face him, anger giving his pale skin a slight flush. "You said there would be a prearranged time and place."

"There will be. Think of this as getting more time to think about what you do and don't want out of this arrangement we have."

"I will not be ignored like a common insect," he snarled, lips drawn back.

Suppressing the urge to sigh and roll her eyes, she reached up and touched his cheek tenderly. "I know. But some things are bigger than us. You don't always get what you want right away, Loki. Sometimes, you have to wait for it."

"And if I can't?" he asked, eyes glittering dangerously.

"Then perhaps you should find someone else to make a deal with," Natasha said simply, hand dropping from his face. She had too much to do and didn't have time to deal with his zig zagging emotions. Not having to worry about him killing her took a lot of the tension out of her dealings with him, that was for sure.

Sulking, Loki stood to the side and watched her pack for her trip. "I'll find you no matter where you go," he said finally.

Natasha faced him, hands on her hips. "Do _not_ ruin this for me, Loki. Promise me that."

"Do you honestly expect me to keep any of my promises?"

He had a point, but Natasha was rapidly losing her patience with dealing with his mercurial moods. "You will keep this one, Loki. If you value the possibility of our association in any way, _you will keep this one."_

Loki clenched his jaw. "You think to command me?"

"I think you have a choice to make."

Those were apparently the right words to use. His jaw tightened even further, but he nodded stiffly and abruptly said "I promise." Before she could say anything, he disappeared.

She refused to think of the reasons why he might have promised her. She refused to think of what he wanted from her, of the soft, reverent gaze he had when she had dominated him. And she steadfastly refused to think of the anticipation thrumming in her veins at the thought of having him kneel before her.

Natasha had work to do. Those thoughts would have to wait until she had personal time.

***

It made absolutely no logical sense, but Loki had long since stopped thinking along standard logical lines. Perhaps the magic that infused him had warped his thinking, or staring too long into the Void had corrupted him. Or likely it was the jealousy and pain that lay simmering beneath his skin. Anything could bring it forth, and he didn't like to think of the black abyss that passed as his heart. Still, he was capable of affection. He was capable of mercy. Of grace. Of justice. He could be kind, even. He had power in spades, and he could use it to do good. He _could,_ though none would trust his intentions now.

_I think you have a choice to make._

The words carried more than one meaning, of course. Conversations with Natasha Romanoff were often barbed things, weapons coated in silken smiles. It was _work,_ a challenge he hadn't had in centuries. She had survived his plots, and she hadn't broken. It drove him mad, and he still didn't understand the secret to her survival.

The branches of this section of Yggdrasil were empty, and he could see the vast blackness of space all around him. No prying eyes, nothing that could hold him accountable. The vacuum was a mirror of his own dark heart, and his skin crawled. Still, he refused to back down. The pain was familiar, burning through him. Fueling him. Gouging out new wounds that he could look upon, reflect on its meaning and use later when necessary.

Oh, how he ached for even a moment's peace. Natasha's damned accounting weighed heavily on him, adding to the oil slick inside his soul. He was drowning inside himself, and her bright red hair shone like a beacon. She was not a virtuous maiden. No, a virtuous woman would not readily admit to killing people and holding a tally that rivalled his own. A virtuous woman would not bargain to save the life of a man that had an equally tainted past, nor would one agree to a bargain that involved debasing herself to suit his whim. Of course, he would debase himself as well, which he would never admit to craving. Even a moment of solace would help ease the strain he was under. Just a moment, the space between her heartbeats at his ear, the stroke of her fingers through his hair or down his spine.

Loki dug his fingers into the flesh of his thigh and rejoiced in the pain. It grounded him, kept him from flying apart and rejoining the chaos in the vastness of space between Yggdrasil's branches. He had been warned not to walk the paths _between_ too often; the distances were often too great, and time and space grew more and more warped the farther he walked.

He was exhausted. He would never admit it to Natasha, but he was _tired,_ down to his bones, and this damned ledger of hers only exacerbated it. The weariness was too heavy, too miserable. It was an unwelcome weight, but to admit it would be weakness. She carried her own weight and seemed to have no difficulty dealing with additional duties. Some part of him was thrilled that she didn't simply dissolve their arrangement.

Looking down at the blood on his thigh, he almost forgot why he was walking along Yggdrasil's branches. The red called to him, though he couldn't have said why. He could have been losing his grip on time and space. He would need an actual place to walk for a time. The pain wouldn't be enough to keep him locked in place as _Loki_ and not simply chaos.

When he found a familiar opening in the branches, he was stunned to find himself in his old suite of rooms on Asgard. He had vowed never to return when he fell from the Bifrost, and he had simply assumed his way would be barred forever. Instead, he found his way there easily, and the suite looked untouched, as if the door had simply been sealed. All of his old books, scrolls and weapons were where he had left them that fateful day. Even the bed covers retained their wrinkles and rumples. He was _home,_ but it no longer felt comfortable. He had changed far too much for it to be.

Still, Loki touched the bed curtains, the corners of his lips curling into a smile. He liked the feel of the silk and the stitching of the embroidery. The pattern looked random, but they were protection spells that his mother had worked into the fabric herself. Even Thor didn't have them, marking him as special.

No, wait. Frigga was not his mother. Thor wasn't his brother. He had no family; he had been left for dead and abandoned, and the Asgardians were strangers. He may have called himself Loki of Asgard, but this was not his home. They were not his family.

Strange how the thought pained him so dreadfully.

He turned when he heard the door opening, not sure what he would find there. Armed guards, perhaps. Loyal Asgardians willing to call him traitor, wanting to bind him hand and foot and deliver him to Odin for punishment.

It was Frigga, in all her regal finery, a look of hope and love on her face that was painful to gaze upon. Her name was on Loki's ledger, now that he had a blasted conscience.

"I almost didn't believe the wards," she said, coming into his room and shutting the door behind her quickly. "I'm glad I came anyway."

"Do you think I have anything to say to you?"

His cruel words halted her progress to his side. "Loki," she said, the hurt tone in her voice wounding him deeply. "Even if you have nothing to say, perhaps you can listen."

"No, I—"

 _"Listen,"_ Frigga said sharply, her soft voice like a whip crack in the stillness. "Whatever you believe, you are still my son. You always have been, you always will be. I may not like your choices, but those are yours to make."

Choices. Love. _Love is for children. You have a choice to make._

"Fine," he said grudgingly, spreading his hands wide. "I'm listening."

She approached slowly, eyes locked to his face. "You were a small thing when Odin brought you back from Jotunheim," she said softly. She didn't reach out to touch him, and he almost wished that she would. "Whatever you think you know of them, most of it is wrong. It was propaganda in wartime that no one bothered to correct when the war was over. You were abandoned in a temple as an offering to their gods—"

"They have no gods."

Frigga gave him an almost patronizing smile. "They have a culture, Loki. It is not ours, but theirs. They have their hopes and dreams and fears, and even as an infant, you inspired fear in them. So even though you should have been King there, you were abandoned."

"So Odin told you—"

"You had magic, even then. It can be sensed, Loki, and they feared it. Theirs is not a culture that values magic. They kill any offspring that has it." Now she reached out to touch his arm gently, and he stood there, transfixed. "I don't think Odin felt it, but I could. So I taught you what I could of controlling your elemental magic and I taught you Asgardian magic." Her smile was soft and tremulous. "I cannot countermand his orders, but in this I did not care. He wanted you raised in our home as our son. He never said what to teach or not to teach. That was my choice, _our_ time together. I gave you a world, Loki. You have part of my heart, and no matter what Odin commands, I cannot undo that."

Loki tried to twist his lips into a sneer, but they simply refused to move. "I was abandoned."

"I hope you never understand the pain that it is to lose a child, the _wrongness_ of it, the grief that never truly dissipates."

He thought of Natasha, that she could not have children and did not want to. And then he wanted to dig his nails into his own soft flesh as penance for even thinking that. "No, I will not know of such things," he replied stiffly.

Frigga was quiet a moment. "Perhaps I should not have taught you as much as I did. Perhaps it would not have pained you so. It set you apart, and I did not see that until too late. If I hadn't been so selfish, keeping you with me for so long... I will never know now, and for that I am sorry. I can't prevent your pain, I cannot ease it. I wish I could."

He wanted to believe her. He wanted to so badly that he ached. Yet he still stood proud and tall, unwilling to bend and buckle in front of her.

"Odin has banished you," she continued softly. "Whatever solace you wanted here, he will not allow you to have it. In the worlds you built in Yggdrasil you may take rest for a time."

"How kind of you," Loki spat, anger and shame warring within him.

Frigga didn't let go of his arm. "I cannot countermand my King. Not openly." She paused to meet his eyes. "You can bring what you like, Loki. But once you leave, I will have to close the ways here from Yggdrasil. You will only be able to enter Asgard by the Bifrost."

"Such a warm welcome," he sneered.

"I seek to keep you alive," Frigga retorted, steel in her tone. "We do what we must, Loki. I will not see you or Odin at war with each other."

"You're afraid I'll win?"

"Such pain," Frigga began, then stopped abruptly. "You have those that would have aided you, if you but accepted it. Instead, you drove away any who may have helped you. You harmed those who could have been friends. Even now, you prefer to wound me with words."

Loki remained silent, agreeing with her. He didn't know how to be kind. It had been burned out of him too long ago. Now he was a monster, the creature that stalked nightmares.

"I left the ways open, hoping one day you would return and I could see you again. There is such pain in you, and I cannot heal it. Despite your actions, there are still those who would be willing to reach out to you." Frigga searched his expression intently. "Natasha is a friend despite your betrayal, is she not?"

"I won't discuss her, Mother."

The word slipped out before he could stop it, and she brightened visibly. He held very still as she slid her hand up his arm to his shoulder. "Allow others to care for you, Loki. There is still some goodness in you, however deep you may have to look."

"I am not good."

"Perhaps," she allowed. "But that doesn't mean you can't do good things." She cupped his face in her hands, and for a moment Loki instead felt Natasha's hands on his cheeks. "We are the sum of our choices, and the successful life is one with the fewest regrets."

His lips parted, maybe to say something, but his tongue refused to work. How humbling and humiliating, the liesmith unable to lie!

"I am full of regrets," Loki murmured finally, covering one of her hands with his own. "I have a path before me, and I must take it," he said, slowly pulling her hand away from his face.

Frigga's smile was infinitely kind. "But paths change. They collide, converge, diverge. You see the paths on Yggdrasil, Loki. You know this to be true."

She deserved a better son than he, Loki decided. If she had another Thor, another willing to cherish her the way she should have been.

"I should leave," Loki said, stepping back. Her remaining raised hand fell slowly to her side, and Loki felt like a heel. He should not have. He should have felt strong putting her in her place, should have felt more like a god than a lost little boy.

Stepping forward, she seized him in a tight, desperate hug. "Perhaps I will find you again, on Midgard or some other realm." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and he nearly sobbed at the contact. "I still love you, Loki. I do not like the choices you have made, but I still love you."

"I should have been king," he found himself saying into her hair.

"You had a chance when Odin fell into the Odinsleep. But instead of showing how your wisdom could save us, you waged war. You were not better than Thor in that regard."

Chastised, Loki pulled back. "I would have destroyed Asgard's enemies to ensure peace."

"The murder of millions casts a dark shadow," Frigga said softly. "I see it in Odin every day, and I would never wish a fate like that on you."

"I deserve it, do I not? I am the monster from the tales they tell. I'm the creature haunting the dark, ready to kill the babes in their cradles."

Frigga grasped his hands and pulled him close. "You are only a monster if you choose to be. Your fate is your own, Loki, I saw to that. I had given you the gift of knowledge, and you have opportunities in front of you. Your blood does not define who you are. You can choose the path on which you tread. It doesn't have to be this one. _You can choose."_

Loki wrenched himself away, chest pained and heaving. "No, I cannot." His gaze fell upon the weapons he had once so proudly displayed in his room. Thor had always bested him in combat, and Loki had only ever been in shadow.

"You can," Frigga insisted.

Steeling himself, he turned back to her with his most distant expression. "You delude yourself into thinking I am something soft. I cannot love." Nor could he deserve it in return, could he? Too many had fallen because of his dark desires, too many names on the ledger he had so recently acquired. Knowledge burned, a curse and burden upon him.

So Loki curled his lips into a hateful smile. "You say you love me, that you are my mother. Can you truly be mother to a monster? Even those horrid creatures have mothers, yes? So you would be the mother of a beast, and watch me destroy all of creation?"

"You would not," Frigga said, voice sure as she looked at him. "You will not."

"Sure of yourself?" he asked. How? How could she be certain when he wasn't himself?

"You wouldn't be here if you were willing to destroy us. Take what you need, Loki. I'll help you this once, but once you leave, I can no longer help you directly."

"I don't need your help," he snapped, scorning her kind eyes. That was weakness. That was for children, and he was no child. He was a monster, and that was all he ever could be.

"You may not _need_ it, but I still wish to give it." There was that thread of steel in her voice, the tone that even Odin would heed.

Bowing his head slightly, he nodded sharply. He could feel magic swirl around him, could feel all of his childhood belongings swirl around him in a whirlwind. Instead of the destructive energy his magical tantrum had wrought, Frigga had taken all his possessions and placed them inside a small bag. Loki took it when she pressed it into his hand, not trusting himself to speak. She pressed another kiss to his cheek, and he could feel her love burning him. He had wronged her so much, and he continued to hurt her even now. Loki wished she didn't love him, or that he could beg for forgiveness he didn't deserve. He wanted to hold her tightly and never let go of this moment. If he left now, he would be alone.

And it was no one else's fault but his own.

Frigga gave him one last desperate hug, and it was one that he was ashamed to return with equal fervor, his breath painful in his chest. "I'll send you somewhere safe, Loki. Anywhere on Yggdrasil, to anyone who would shelter you."

_Natasha._

***  
***


	4. Nest of Lies

Natasha was in the bathroom of her hotel room, her violet dress clinging to her body like a second skin. Mascara was done, and she was in the process of applying the bright red lipstick when she saw the shimmer of air in the room behind her through the mirror. She turned, immediately taking stock of the situation. A curling iron wasn't much of a weapon, but it was still hot from creating waves in her hair, so that would have to do.

Loki stepped out of the portal in full regalia, woven leather armor and embossed gold accents in place. He was visibly agitated, lips drawn back and eyes flashing. "Natasha," he snarled, though she could somehow tell that his anger wasn't directed explicitly at her.

"Now is not a good time. I'm working, Loki," she said, turning back to her reflection in the mirror. He stalked toward her as she put on the lipstick. Capping the tube, she at least appeared to be nonchalant. "What is it?"

"Now it's my turn," he said, voice like a whip crack in the otherwise silent room. "Our deal, Natasha," he clarified at her impassive visage. "You've played your little games on my person, now I get to play."

"We don't have an arranged meeting time," she told him, turning partway toward him. "I'm not Natasha here, and I can't do this right now."

"I'll stop time," he snarled, fists clenched at his sides. "I'll take you out of its flow and reinsert you precisely back where you are."

"You don't do this," she hissed in return, stepping forward despite his looming stance. She thrust her jaw out stubbornly. "This isn't our deal."

Loki all but roared at her. _"It has to be now!"_

"Not everything is about you!" she snapped, irritated. "I have a job to do, Loki. People are relying on me to keep my word and do what has to be done. I don't have time for this now!"

He grabbed hold of her arm, and Natasha was almost surprised that his magic wasn't scalding hot enough to burn her again. Teeth grit as if to keep from screaming, Loki looked at her in near desperation. It made Natasha wonder how she ever thought him inscrutable. "After earlier... You don't know... I _need_ this. I came directly to you. I didn't even think, I came here. You tell me now you don't have time for me?"

She had no idea what he was talking about, as she had been in deep cover for almost a month. He was admitting this much, which had to be cataclysmic. What would he do if she turned him loose? How many untold lives would be lost if he couldn't control his immense temper?

"I'm on a job, Loki. I can't just walk away, no matter how much I might want to."

There. That had to be something to assuage his ego while still maintaining a limit. If she gave in too easily, he would never respect her further. She wouldn't be able to dominate him or give him the release he needed. She needed to be in control, or at least have the appearance of it.

"I'll take you out of time, Natasha. I've done it before for less."

Pretending to ponder that, she finally nodded. "Fine, then."

She could feel something like static on her skin, and then everything around her seemed to shift in coloration somehow. Was this what magic looked like?

Loki grasped her arm, and she let go of her lipstick. Distantly, she heard it clatter into the sink as he pulled her from the bathroom. Her dress loosened and fell from her body, leaving her in nothing but black lace panties and a garter belt holding up thigh high stockings. She stepped over the puddle of violet silk on the floor, eyes locked on Loki's. Something flickered in his gaze besides anger and a hungry lust for her body. She couldn't identify it, but it didn't scare her in the slightest. Whatever it was, Loki wouldn't harm her.

 _"I need you to kneel,"_ he said, hunger in his voice.

Not breaking eye contact, Natasha gracefully dropped to her knees. The eye contact could be seen as a challenge or act of aggression, but Loki licked his lower lip and unbuckled his gold vambraces slowly. She stayed silent, hands clasped behind her, watching him closely as he removed his chest plate and loosened the straps that held his leather armor in place. His movements were deliberate and precise, meant to draw out any potential worry she might have had. This was a game, one where he had to feel important and masterful, especially after whatever had happened earlier. Perhaps it was meeting with Odin or Thor. Perhaps Sif or the Warriors Three arrived and threatened him. It really didn't matter who it was or what the outcome was; he felt small and powerless, and he needed this to feel whole again.

She opened her mouth wide to take in his cock when the rest of his clothes disappeared. Loki grasped the back of her head tightly, and Natasha appreciated that he didn't simply mash her face into his crotch. He held her firmly in place as she worked her tongue along his length, coaxing it to fullness. Loki's breath hitched a little, and Natasha could see his eyes grow dark with desire as he watched her mouth bob over him. Swirling her tongue around in circles made his fingers twitch at the back of her head, but he still didn't cut off her breathing. Thoughtful, which wasn't what she expected of him in this state.

He fucked her mouth, breath stuttering in his chest as he watched her. Natasha couldn't quite guess at his thoughts, but there seemed to be an air of desperate loneliness about him. He was upset, and the first place he had gone was to her side.

Her plan had worked, but to what end? What would be her endgame?

Natasha swallowed when he came, sucking and licking gently to bring him down from the edge. He gave a shuddering groan as he cradled her skull in his hands, staring at her as if he could figure out her thoughts. That he still tried meant that he couldn't, that there wasn't a spell for telepathy or clairvoyance. Just as well; he wouldn't take it well if he thought she was playing him like a fine instrument.

When Loki wrenched himself away from her, she almost expected a caustic comment. Instead, he took a steadying breath and then grasped her by the throat. Suppressing her instinct to fight back, Natasha kept her hands loosely clasped behind her back. He lifted her to her feet easily, then a little higher so that her toes barely touched the floor when she arched her feet. Neither said a word, as if voices would break the spell.

Depositing her on the bed, Natasha wriggled a bit to get comfortable. Lying on her back, her legs fell over the side. Loki pushed them wide, eyes dropping from hers to take in the scrap of black lace covering her red curls. He pulled them off of her, ripping the lace and discarding it without another glance. Crashing to his knees in front of her, he surged forward to mouth at her flesh. She reached down to him, but the moment her fingers brushed against his dark hair, he looked up at her with flashing eyes. Magic pressed against her, holding her wrists down on either side of her head, a ghostly hand circling her throat. It didn't press, but felt almost like a choker. A pair moved up along her abdomen until they could cup her bare breasts, and then Loki bent down to lick at her clit. His hands held her hips almost tight enough to bruise, keeping her from moving too much. Natasha let her breathing grow harsh and loud; usually she was very quiet.

He brought her to the brink of orgasm, then pulled away. Whimpering, she looked down to see what he was doing. Loki smirked as he roughly repositioned her on her hands and knees. The magic hands were still on her, one pair cupping and pinching her nipples while another simply held her throat. "I want to hear you," he growled, a thread of menace in his tone. He thrust deep inside of her, making Natasha cry out. _"Yes,"_ he growled, fingers digging deeply into the flesh of her hips as he held her. "Just like that."

Her fingers scrabbled for some kind of purchase against the soft sheets as he fucked her hard and fast. She moaned and made mewling sounds, forcing herself to be louder than she normally would be. He groaned, pleased with the sounds, and another ghostly hand dipped between her legs to rub her clit. Natasha nearly wailed at the contact, muffling the sound by pressing her face into the sheets. _"No,"_ Loki roared, displeased, and another magical hand yanked back on her hair. The hand at her throat tightened and the pair at her breasts pinched painfully. She yelped more in surprise than pain, but it apparently assuaged his ego. The pain lessened, and he resumed his punishing pace. Pleasure still shot through her with each thrust, until she came with a hoarse cry, fingers pulling at the sheets as she tried to writhe and arch her back.

Loki pulled out of her abruptly, and Natasha made a disappointed sound. He turned her over and spread her legs wide, stepping into the space between them. The expression on his face was intent and intense, fixated on her flushed cheeks and parted lips, makeup smeared across her face and the sheet beneath her. Lifting one leg to rest against his chest, Loki guided his cock into her and slid into her slicked sheath. He kept one hand curled around her knee, keeping that leg in place as he leaned forward. His other hand was at her hip. The conjured hands still held her down and teased her breasts and clit as he began to thrust into her. Natasha made mewling sounds of pleasure as she tried to tilt her hips. Loki leaned forward, changing the angle of his thrusts and nearly lifting her ass off of the bed as if he could fold her in half. Her mewls changed to deep, throaty moans, and Loki gave her a predatory smile in response.

The magic gave him an advantage in getting her overwhelmed by sensation, and Natasha pushed against the magic as best as she could. His smile grew into a manic grin as he felt her attempts to move, and he laughed. "You want this so badly, Natasha," he growled, everything in his posture screaming that he wanted to utterly possess her.

"God," she moaned, trying to arch her back. It wouldn't hurt to give him a little something.

That was just what he wanted to hear. Startled joy suffused his features, and the magic touches took on a less frantic aspect. Now they were more like caresses, and Loki leaned into her. His hand slid down her thigh to cup a breast tenderly. "I am your god, are I not?" he asked, voice thick with raw desire. He sounded on the verge of orgasm, so she clenched her inner muscles tight around his cock. She moaned again, hoping he would take that as assent, but it also felt good to have him thick and full inside of her. Natasha would never admit it, but she had actually missed his assaults on her senses.

Shuddering, Loki came, hips stuttering. He leaned into her heavily, and Natasha looked at him as she struggled to get her breathing under control. Laughing suddenly, he sounded utterly insane. He looked at her, lips stretched wide in that manic grin. "I should make you go to that party as you are now. Put on the dress, my seed on your thighs, my scent on your skin. They'll have to know you're _mine,_ none of them can have you."

Natasha found that the ghostly hands were gone so she could move her arms, and she reached out to touch his cheek gently. "Is that what you really want, Loki?"

Her words were gentle, nonthreatening. But he pulled back sharply and let her leg drop to the bed, withdrawing from her body. "I could do that. I could make you."

"Or you could ask me," she said quietly, reaching for him. He let her take hold of his arm and pull him in closer to her as she sat up. "Is that what you want?"

Loki looked at her, expression shuttered. He grasped her face in his hands, eyes searching her gaze for something. "I've ruined your makeup."

"I can fix it. Most things can be fixed with enough time and effort."

The words were loaded, and they both knew it.

When he tried to pull away, she tightened her hold on his arm. They really should have some kind of safe word to end scenes, she realized. She wasn't sure if he still needed to be on his godly trip or if it was safe enough to react as she normally would. "Loki."

"You can clean up. You've said this is important to you." He sounded churlish, as if this concession had been dragged out of him rather than offered freely.

Godly trip continued, then. She pulled him down for a soft kiss. "If you command me to," she murmured against his mouth, "then I'll wash up and fix my makeup. But I won't put on any new perfume. I'll still smell like you."

It was apparently the right thing to say. Loki grasped her by the back of the head and kissed her passionately on the mouth, tongue sliding between her open lips. His other hand slid down her back, and he leaned forward, tilting her backward toward the bed. When he broke off the kiss to let her breathe, he fell to his knees and put his mouth to her swollen flesh. He licked and teased her wet folds, and Natasha gasped at the contact. Remembering he wanted to hear her, she made her moans a little too loud. Loki slid two fingers into her, curling them so that he could feel her slick sheath and give her something to clench down on. Natasha bucked her hips a little and arched her back, pulling at the sheet beneath her as she writhed beneath his mouth.

Loki continued until she came with a cry, gasping and moaning. He sat back, licking his lips with a pleased expression on his face. He stood and sat down on the bed beside her, then leaned over her splayed body. "I know you like this," he purred, sliding one hand down her belly. "Has anyone else ever touched you as I have?"

The truth would likely anger him, so she licked her dry lips. It distracted him a little, and Natasha reached out to trace the planes of his chest. "There hasn't been anyone else since you cornered me at my safe house."

That answer pleased him greatly, and she could practically see his chest puff up in pride. "So you're _mine."_

After driving everyone else away, it was obviously important that he could claim someone as his, someone that he could belong to. It would have been sad if she hadn't known that he had driven away those who cared for him in a deliberate manner, pushing all the buttons he knew would be the most painful. He had only himself to blame for his current situation, though he likely didn't have any conscious knowledge of his motives.

"We're still not in reality yet, are we?" Natasha asked, not touching the possessive statement. She doubted she had the energy to deal with all of his issues at this point.

"No," Loki said softly, hand still stroking her stomach. Natasha wasn't terribly fond of that look in his eye, as if he was plotting something else.

She reached up and traced the line of his jaw. "Good."

That gave him a jolt, and his lips twitched into the ghost of a pleased smile. "You will have to leave, however. You were most insistent."

"Yes. I've been tracking the funding and scientist recruitment patterns." She stretched, lips quirking when his eyes tracked the sinuous curves of her body. In some ways, he would always be predictable. Loki slid his hand down her stomach to curl his fingers between her legs, making her gasp. "Why? Did you want to come with me?"

His eyes glittered, the invitation pleasing him immensely. "Would it be appropriate?"

"SHIELD still has facial recognition software on the lookout for you."

"I could look like anyone you wished."

She reached for his face again, tracing the curve of his lips. "Could it be something that would fool others but not me? I'd prefer to see you as you are."

Oh, that certainly pleased Loki a lot. He damn near preened under her touch, fingers sliding between her slick folds to tease her slowly. "Are you going to attack anyone tonight?"

"Depends on the kind of after party I get invited to."

Loki's manic grin was back, and he started playing with her in earnest. "Is it inappropriate to bring a paramour with you?" He hovered over her body, and a magical hand cupped one of her breasts in a tender caress. "Would it not signal your superiors that something had gone wrong?"

"I've been in deep cover for a while now. It's my op." He didn't understand the lingo, so she clarified "It's my decision. Whatever gets the job done."

Slipping his fingers inside her, he curled them right into her G spot, making her moan and arch her back. It pressed her further into his magical touch, rubbing her other breast against the arm he was leaning on. The manic grin definitely had a possessive cast to it. "Excellent."

After he teased her into another orgasm, he gently picked her up in his arms. It was a move that surprised her; she would have thought that he would let her wobble her way to the bathroom. She was cleaned up with a wave of his hand, the smears of makeup gone entirely and the stickiness between her thighs removed. He watched her intently as she reapplied her eye shadow and mascara, a faint tint of blush and then the impossibly red lipstick again. Loki slid his hand down the curve of her back as she curled her hair again, painstakingly arranging curls artfully around her face, leaving a few loose. Before she could even retrieve her discarded panties and dress, Loki snapped his fingers and they were back in place.

Natasha looked at him in amusement. "Handy trick you have there."

"What use is a skill if it cannot be used to my benefit?" He was instantly dressed in a black tuxedo with forest green cummerbund and bow tie, his hair slicked back from his face. Sliding an arm around her waist, he pulled her flush against his body. "I intrigue you, Natasha."

He wasn't using that insipid nickname of little spider even when he could. This had to be progress of a sort. She allowed a soft, secretive smile to curl her lips. "Perhaps. It's fair to say that I intrigue you as well."

"A matched pair of liars?" he asked sardonically.

"Somewhere within the nest of lies is a grain of truth. The challenge is to find it."

Loki's grin was a baring of teeth. "Challenge accepted."

***

Loki accompanied Natasha to a fancy dinner party in a lavish resort high in the Pyrenees Mountains. On the way, she had briefly summarized what was going on so that he wouldn't blow her cover. As the heiress Emilie Turpin, Natasha supposedly had come to Andorra to evaluate a winter estate and see about investing money in a local company to help with the economy. The tiny country had been a tax haven in the EU until recently, but now there were business taxes, sales taxes and even an income tax. Still, AIM had already set up a lab in the area under the guise of research into hydroelectric power, pharmaceuticals and theoretical robotics.

"How terribly banal," Loki scoffed. He had applied a glamour so that he appeared bland and forgettable, and Natasha missed his smirks. "Your skills are wasted here."

Natasha flashed him a smile that was insufferably charming and innocent. "Darling Lucas," she said, French accent to her words. "Whatever do you mean? _Maman_ had such love for her homeland, I simply had to see if I can honor her memory."

He laughed as they entered the ballroom. She had fallen into her role so seamlessly, all intents and purposes becoming Emilie. It was obvious that she had grabbed Loki's attention, and he really had no idea how she usually operated for SHIELD. He had fought her and had chased away Hydra informants, but he had never seen her in her element.

It ought to be an interesting evening.

The new director for AIM in Killian's wake was Ekaterina Sarkissian, who had been the company's CFO while Killian was alive. She expanded the company's R&D division, hoping to change its perception in the media, claiming that all of the difficulty with Extremis was due to Killian's single-minded and solitary drive to experiment before the formula was ready. SHIELD suspected that she was working with Project Centipede, but there was no proof of that. They were still at least three or four steps behind that group, so Natasha was directed to work the financial angle. She would be able to tell where to go from there; either project needed millions in funding to survive and expand its research.

Loki quickly grew bored with the small talk and insipid attempts of various businessmen to flirt with Emilie once it was determined that Lucas was a close family friend but not a lover. Natasha managed to smile and nod, gradually drawing out which of the potential suitors were investors in Sarkissian's AIM. One finally was useful and introduced her to Sarkissian. Natasha pasted her most vapid expression on her face as Emilie, but there was something nagging at her as she met Sarkissian. The woman was familiar somehow, though Natasha knew for a fact that they had never met before. She could place Sarkissian from the Moscow area by her accent and the cadence of her speech, but she knew that Sarkissian wasn't affiliated with the Red Room Academy. None of the old teachers there had survived; it had been one of the first things she had done when she turned mercenary.

"You're thinking of something," Loki murmured to Natasha when Sarkissian moved to charm someone else out of millions. "I can tell that much."

"That's rather the point, Lucas," Emilie said with a bright smile. "I'm thinking that technology should have a good enough future to make it a worthwhile investment. Why, Monsieur Lafitte seems to have excellent returns." There was a devilish spark in Natasha's eyes as she let Loki hand her a glass of champagne. "Of course, having the same name as a legendary pirate likely has nothing to do with such matters."

He smiled, following her lead on this. Natasha was grateful that he wasn't ruining the chance to meet with Sarkissian in person and try to find the financial trails. "Should I be of further assistance with your work, then?"

"Oh? Could you do such a thing?"

"You'd be surprised by the things I can choose to do."

"I'm sure," Natasha replied, lips curling into a secretive smile. "As you've said, there is endless fascination in this endeavor."

"For example," Loki said quietly, pressing a cell phone into Natasha's hand. "This could appear for you to look at, and I can replace it before she even knows it's missing."

Handing her glass of champagne to Loki to hold, Natasha swiped the touchscreen to activate it. No password, how trusting. She kept her social smile in place as she went through the contact list and calendar application.

Not only were there known AIM agents in her phone, but there were a number of high ranking Hydra officials, including Ophelia Sarkissian.

She passed the phone back to Loki and retrieved the glass of champagne. "This just got a lot more interesting, thank you."

Loki arched an eyebrow at her as the phone disappeared from his hand. "You're welcome. Now what will you do?"

"Same as the original plan, just more background research."

"Sounds dull."

Natasha smiled widely. "Not always."

While the party was still in full swing, Natasha exited and headed directly for the suite that had been registered in Ekaterina Sarkissian's name. Picking the lock with two hairpins would have taken her a few minutes, but Natasha merely gestured toward it. "Want to do the honors?"

Loki didn't look amused, and merely opened the door. The lock snapped open, and they strolled inside the suite. Natasha began to systematically go through all of Ekaterina's belongings, including her portfolio and briefcase. Most of it was fairly standard financial documents for a technology company and think tank, but the numbers didn't quite add up, especially after Emilie's fawning suitors constantly stated that AIM was so good on their returns. "This bores me," Loki declared after about ten minutes. "This isn't terribly exciting."

"I never promised exciting," Natasha reminded him.

He blew out an irritated breath. "No, you did not," he agreed softly. "This is tedious."

"Such is what I normally do for a living."

Natasha removed one of the jewels from her hair clip and peeled away one side of the backing. She pressed the small black circle into the portfolio binding, making sure it blended in with the stitching. Another part of the backing went into the briefcase lining. Loki merely watched her move around the room, arms crossed over his chest as he contemplated her movements. "You are comfortable this way."

Replacing the jewel in her hair clip, Natasha shrugged. "I have more to research tonight. Time to head out."

Stalking forward, Loki let his fingertips run down her arms. "And if I wish you to put that off?"

"You promised."

He spun away from her and opened the door to the suite. "I suppose I did not think you valued this," he admitted finally.

"And now that you know I do?"

Loki turned back to face her. "It could be a mistake, revealing a weakness to me. I know too much about you already."

"As I know you," Natasha replied evenly

At an impasse, Loki let out a slow breath, then crooked his arm in a gallant manner. "You have work to do, dear one. Time to go."

Not sure where he was going with this, Natasha still nodded at him. "Yes, let's go."

***

The party was just as deadly dull as earlier, but Sarkissian seemed to be looking at Natasha with suspicion. Loki saw it before she did, mostly because she was gathering further information and didn't have his enhanced senses. "Her cover is too perfect," Sarkissian was telling the man at her side, voice low and angry. Loki withdrew from Natasha's side and headed toward the restroom he had passed on his way back to the ballroom. Gathering a cloak of shadows around himself, Loki slid back into the ballroom and headed for Sarkissian. She was speaking rapidly in Russian now, which Natasha would have had no trouble understanding. It was a thought to translate it to the Alltongue with a spell, and Loki quickly gathered that she was contacting her cousin Ophelia at Hydra. She wanted access to the Clairvoyant _now,_ and wouldn't do any further work on the nanobots that Ophelia wanted until she was sure it was safe.

Oh, no, that wouldn't do at all. This had to be the sort of thing that Natasha wanted. And if she got it, he would have her all to himself that much sooner. Yes, that was all he cared for. It had nothing to do with how pleased she would be, or how well she might reward him.

Loki extended his will and froze time at the party as soon as Sarkissian ended her phone call. He strode to Natasha's side and freed her from his spell. "She contacted her cousin at Hydra," he told her without preamble. "She mentioned a clairvoyant and nanobots, then a flash drive with schematics that she has hidden until Ophelia gives her what she wants."

Natasha frowned. "It wasn't in her suite, and the tracking devices won't give me a clue. It must be on her right now."

She had no compunction about raiding the woman's purse or checking her dress for hidden pockets in the lining. Loki raised an eyebrow at the thorough search, and nearly laughed when she retrieved the flash drive. "Clever female."

"You have to use what you have," Natasha said with a shrug. "How long can you use this spell?"

"I only extended it to this ballroom. The rest of the world still moves normally."

"This could be a problem if someone was expecting—"

Before she could finish her thought, the doors to the ballroom opened. The first man through the door froze in place as the time spell hit him, but the men behind him were still alert and aware. Two ran off shouting in Spanish.

"Well, there goes that idea," Natasha said, as if she had been able to outline a plan after all. Loki found it amazing that she was so calm. Moving to a table, she took a pen and quickly jotted a series of numbers and directions onto one of the linen napkins. She wrapped it around the flash drive and pressed it into Loki's hand. "You're going to need to go to Clint Barton and give this to him. He knows where I was headed, and he'll pass this along to the necessary people."

"You expect me to leave you here?"

"I expect you to let me do my job," she said, voice icy. Ah, there was the cruel edge to her, the one that was all business and no emotion. "They expect that _someone_ did this to the room, so someone will have to stay."

"I can send you to Barton—"

"My op, my rules," she said shortly. "I know the hotel schematics, and Emilie has to be here or else Sarkissian really has something to suspect. You, on the other hand, already stepped out of the room a few minutes ago. You can go and come back."

It made sense, but Loki didn't want to respond to logic. He wanted her safe, and he wasn't about to look at that impulse too closely. "If they kill you..."

"They wouldn't be able to target me if they don't know I'm the target. We're wasting time," she hissed, striding back to the knot of men she had been speaking with earlier. "Just go, and make sure that they get that information."

"Natasha..."

"The mission is a failure if that data isn't delivered to SHIELD. That's more important right now. I can take care of myself. I don't need an extraction plan."

He had no idea what she was saying, but the gist of it was clear. "I can't leave you," he hissed, coming back to her side. Men had returned to the door, but they didn't know how to get in without getting frozen and didn't want to shoot into the frozen crowd. Loki could see that they were Sarkissian's men; each wore an AIM insignia on the lapel of their uniforms. "Not here, not like this. I can't."

"What will make you deliver that drive?" she asked, eyes flashing in anger.

She was beautiful, and he wanted to bed her immediately. "I need assurance you'll be safe."

Natasha rolled her eyes at him, but Loki couldn't even find it in him to be angry with the disrespectful behavior. "I'll be fine. Drop your spell, and you'll see."

Loki rendered himself invisible before doing just that. Natasha seamlessly reintegrated herself into the inane conversation with the men around her, and he moved to see what Sarkissian was doing. Her men approached her warily, and reported the strange phenomenon. He didn't like the way she narrowed her eyes or told her men to search the entire hotel for a spell caster. She knew far too much about magic for his liking.

He stalked her as she met with her men and ordered more to scour the building. It felt as though his window for escaping detection was closing sharply, but he couldn't leave Natasha behind. He couldn't, even though she had all but ordered him to.

What had become of him?

Loki knew he should leave, deliver her message as she requested and disappear. She didn't need his help to escape. As a trained assassin, Natasha could very well take care of herself. That she could render him helpless and needy should have been proof enough of that.

"Get Turpin," Sarkissian said finally, just as Loki decided to teleport to Barton. "I know everyone else here. Let's see what the little bitch can tell me."

 _No!_ Loki's mind screamed. _She's mine!_

Emilie had a politely blank expression when one of Sarkissian's guards asked her to come with him for a meeting. "Oh? But I haven't even talked with my financial planner about investments yet. Isn't this a little soon?"

Fists curled at his sides, Loki watched as Natasha bid her companions farewell and went with the armed guard. "Where are we going?" she asked in Emilie's sweet voice. "Is there an office or something? Because I really don't know all the financial stuff."

The guard didn't say anything, but brought her to a room with two men and a chair. The guard locked the door behind them, and Loki had a sinking feeling in his gut. Natasha didn't have weapons. Not that she needed them, necessarily, he remembered full well how she was at hand to hand. But this would be three against one, and he itched to help her.

"So it's like that, is it?" she asked, lips quirking into a slight smile.

And then before Loki could open his mouth to speak, she moved. The guard behind her was first to be attacked; she spun around him and gave him a wicked shove toward the other two. None had their guns out, and Natasha pulled the pistol from the guard's holster as he stumbled past her. She got off three shots in quick succession, all head shots.

"You really should have left when I told you to," Natasha said with a sigh, looking unerringly at Loki. "I'm no damsel in distress."

"I should remember that," Loki said, grinning at her. "Yet for some reason I feel protective of you." He dropped his invisibility and walked to her side. "Sarkissian won't let you leave alive after this."

"I'll be able to get out."

He shouldn't doubt her. He knew this was true. But these pesky _feelings_ were interfering with his cold logic and usual rage.

Natasha pulled him down for a kiss. "If it makes you feel better, give me another weapon," she said, lips tilting into a familiar, domineering smile.

As Natasha stripped the men of their weapons and threw a shoulder holster on over her dress to hold them, Loki opened a portal and removed one of his favorite swords. It was three quarter tang in length, with runes along its length. The hilt was richly ornamented with jewels, the guard elaborately wrought to be beautiful as well as functional. It also contained a hidden catch that would turn the sword into twin blades for a dual wielder. "Dwarven crafted, inscribed to retain its edge regardless of what it faces." Loki held it to her reverently.

Taking it with the respect the weapon deserved, Natasha balanced its heft with her right hand as she stowed the pistol in the holster with her left. Looking carefully at the hilt and guard, she easily found the catch and separated the sword. "I like it."

He watched her grasp each blade in one hand, her stance loose yet aggressive. It would be fascinating to spar with her when this was over; he no longer wanted to kill her or maim her, and he rather missed training. "Have a care with this sword. It doesn't function as well if one piece of it is missing."

Natasha gave him a knowing, seductive smile. "That, I can believe. Now go on. I'm a big girl, Loki. I'll cover your exit and eventually make my way back to New York."

"Is that a promise?" he asked, the words difficult to force past his throat.

"Absolutely," she replied without hesitation.

Not fond of goodbyes, he nodded at her sharply and opened a portal behind him. He knew the cadence of Barton's thoughts thanks to the Tesseract, and he didn't even look where the portal opened up. Natasha kicked the door open as Loki stepped backward, each half of his sword in each hand and the holster slung around her torso on top of the violet dress. Stalking forward, Loki lost sight of her as she entered the hallway, though he caught a flash of her smoothly swinging the swords in concert as his portal closed. It looked almost like a dancing prop, and he recalled her saying she had once been a wind-up ballerina. She couldn't use the Emilie Turpin persona after this night, but he doubted that she cared about it much. Even a month ago, he wouldn't have cared either.

Loki turned around and found Clint Barton, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers all in front of him with the appearance that they were ready to strike. "Natasha sends her regards," he said, holding out the napkin and flash drive. "She requested this be brought to you immediately for analysis," he added as he tossed them to Barton. Stark and Rogers looked at him with suspicion, but he let the emotion roll off of him. They didn't matter. They weren't important. Barton was the important one, as he was closest to Natasha. She cared for the others, but Loki knew that Barton was _special_ even if he didn't share her bed.

 _I owe him a debt,_ she had said once, but Loki knew it was more than that. She did not hold onto ties easily. She knew how dangerous that could be, how vulnerable it would make her. While she was absolutely able to turn vulnerability into a strength, that didn't mean she wanted to expose herself needlessly.

"Where is she?" Rogers asked as Barton opened the knotted napkin.

"In Andorra," Loki and Barton said at once. Barton looked up in surprise, though he really shouldn't have. Loki had announced he was at her side. "She will make her way here," Loki drawled. "She promised."

Stark was staring at him for a moment. "So what's your deal?" he asked finally. Barton's hand was tight on the flash drive and napkin, his lips compressed into a thin, unhappy line. He knew how far Natasha was willing to go to complete a mission, and Loki was just starting to learn this. Hadn't he been a mission once upon a time? She had told him as much.

"She asked for a favor."

"It's her op," Barton told them, voice flat. Loki recognized the strained tone he used. "She'll do what it takes to finish it and get back."

"Meaning what? Are we supposed to deal with Loki?" Stark asked irritably as Rogers asked "Are you going to try to kill her again?"

He supposed his rages had been rather destructive. Mortals would not likely be very forgiving of that kind of behavior. Still, he didn't care for them or their concerns. Loki shrugged and gave them a magnanimous smile. "She and I have an arrangement. Never fear, your lives are spared. For now," he added for drama. For additional flair, he rendered himself invisible as well. It was difficult not to laugh at Stark's expression, his eyes wide and nearly frightened. Rogers was on alert, and would be one to keep an eye on.

Barton was looking right at him, but didn't say a word. Loki didn't want to be beholden to him, if he could actually see the trickster. He stepped sideways onto one of Yggdrasil's branches and let the portal close behind him.

Loki would see Natasha again soon enough. He had to believe in that. Unlike him, she always kept her promises, and never made any she didn't mean.

***  
***


	5. Resolution

Loki remained in Natasha's safe house, not wanting to be alone in one of his pocket universes. It was sad and pathetic as far as he was concerned, but he couldn't stand the silence. All it would do now was remind him of everything he had lost. Rage and despair warred within him, blending until they were one and the same. Natasha had sent him away, staying behind to draw off the attackers. He was a god, and by her actions she sought to protect him. Or was he reading too much into it? He could have brought her with him anyway. She hadn't commanded, only asked, and he didn't have to heed her words.

But she had asked him, and her job was important to her. She valued that as much as innocent lives, as justice, as her ledger. It was one of the few things in the entirety of Creation that she actually valued, and he understood that.

_I had given you the gift of knowledge, and you have opportunities in front of you. Your blood does not define who you are. You can choose the path on which you tread. It doesn't have to be this one._

"But what am I now, if not a monster?" he asked the empty house. All it contained was a simple living room set and coffee table, a flat screen television set, a radio, security devices and a small armory. The bedroom was not furnished and contained no clothing or personal items. Dried foodstuffs were in the kitchen cabinets, as well as paper plates, plastic utensils, and napkins. They were all items that would keep for indeterminate amounts of time. Nothing here was personalized. Nothing felt like it could be home.

Loki saw the crystal bottle still sitting on the coffee table. He was surprised at that, though he didn't remember destroying it. Why would that still be sitting there?

The labels were blank, the runes gone. It was a plain crystal bottle now, faint remnants of aromatic oils inside of it. There was the fading essence of magic about it, but the bottle no longer felt powerful or frightening.

"Hello, Loki."

Slowly turning around, Loki faced Hel. "Are you planning to take me to Helheim?"

Hel smiled, and Loki had to admit that her features truly resembled his. Her hair hung loose to her waist, black as a raven's wing and so glossy it nearly had blue highlights. Her dress was spun silver, black runes appearing as she moved. Most were for protection and wisdom, as befitting her station as ruler of Helheim. She wore no adornment, which surprised him. Standing there, Hel did not appear as queenly as she should have.

"No, Loki. Your place is here for now. My seers don't anticipate your arrival in my realm for quite some time if you choose correctly."

"So why are you here?"

"She's special, isn't she?" Hel asked instead. Her smile was knowing, the cunning of a trickster in her veins as well as Frigga's magic and the magicks of the dead. "The décor leaves much to be desired," Hel commented, looking around the barren room, "but it's fitting. Someone just starting out lives here."

"No one lives here."

"Someone could."

Loki frowned at Hel. Knowledge of the secret ways of Yggdrasil had been worth siring her, of that he was sure. Anything else about her was merely rumor. "Why are you here?"

"I've never met you before." Hel clasped her hands in front of her, a serene smile on her face. "I could not before, when I was too young to control portals properly. Then when I could, I would not. You were wild and cruel, too full of rage."

"And now?" he asked, tone sharp with rising anger.

"Now," Hel said with a slow smile. "Now perhaps we truly are kin."

"You're dead."

"Sometimes, we have to manipulate others to get what we want. Sometimes, we destroy the things we value to be sure no one else gets it. Sometimes, we're only too willing to be the monstrous creatures in the dark."

_"What do you want?"_

"She's mine, Loki. While she's mortal, she's yours to play with. I'll give you that. But she _is_ mortal. So she ultimately is mine. One day, when she tires of fighting, she will beg me for release so that she may come home. She will send me many lives before she does, and she has already." Her smile was softer now, almost sad and understanding. "Cherish the time you have with her, Loki. You don't know how long that will be."

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked cautiously, his entire body coiled and ready to spring at her, daughter or not.

"Just because she can heal doesn't mean she can't be hurt," Hel said simply. "She's human and you are not."

"So?"

"You don't do anything by halves. You have little concept of restraint. It must be learned, and you haven't truly had need to."

Loki wanted to hurl the crystal bottle at her. "What of _that?"_ he snarled, pointing at it on the coffee table.

"You needed to learn to see as she sees," Hel replied with a very human looking shrug. "You're wounded, Loki, but you can't see the marks. You tear them open further when you don't have to. You drive others away—"

"Is there a point to this?" he interrupted, voice harsh and pitiless.

Hel turned her dead eyes to him, and he could see the inhumanity within her. For a moment, Loki was afraid of her. If she chose to, she could bind him with magic or kill him and send him to Helheim. She knew different magic than he did, and he wasn't sure if he could defeat her. All things died eventually, and none could cheat death.

"Your choices, as they currently unfold, will bring you to me sooner rather than later."

Choices again. "You don't sound pleased with that," he said, voice heavy with sarcasm. "One would think you don't want to see me."

"Because I don't."

Her voice was edged, cutting deeply. Loki didn't let on that her words cut him, another of her metaphorical wounds. "So why are you here?" he asked again.

"I don't want you in my realm, ever. You don't belong there. You belong _here._ So for once, listen to someone's advice and do what you need to do to stay alive."

"It's what I do best, Hel," he sneered.

"Continue on this path, and you will die." She did the words simply, without fanfare, and he knew them to be true. She had no reason to lie to him on this. Death was her domain, and she knew everything about it. "Find peace. That's what I want for you."

"Why?" he asked, suspicious.

"Because it's the only way you survive. Everything of value has been taken from you. I cannot give you anything but the ability to see heart. I cannot give you peace. That is not something magic can provide. Only you can find it."

 _A blade can bring you pause,_ Natasha had said. _Peace._ She was a blade, and she knew how to quiet his demons. However much he quailed at thought of debasing himself at her feet, it had brought him a temporary peace. It had helped to bring him quiet, where he did not have to seethe and rage.

"Why do you come to me now?" Loki asked suspiciously.

"My seers tell me you stand at a crossroads. They see too many different branches, none of them are clear. In most of them, you die." Hel approached, but did not touch him. She paused at arm's length, looking at him with her dead eyes. Her mother's eyes. "In the futures where you survive, it's because you find a sense of peace and purpose. We don't know what it is, but it's there. And if you survive, the nine realms remain stable."

Now, that was an interesting tale. Before he could ask her what she meant by that, she turned away from him and opened a shimmering portal to Helheim. "Goodbye, Loki. I hope we do not meet for a very long time."

"Goodbye, Hel," Loki murmured, raising his hand slightly in farewell. "I will not see you."

She smiled widely, and for a moment, she was stunningly beautiful. It was blinding, her beauty, the kind that would make mortals fall instantly in love with her and allow her to peacefully take their souls to her realm.

And then she was gone.

Loki looked around the apartment, struck by the silence. Someone could live here, make it a home. A refuge. A place of rest and peace.

Taking a breath, he moved into the bedroom and started opening portals.

***

Wearily, Natasha stumbled into one of the SHIELD safe houses in the south of France. Other agents would have headed into the resort in Andorra for Emilie's belongings, but Natasha didn't hold out much hope that her things would be returned in any kind of workable condition. At least they were just clothes. Those could be replaced. She trusted that Loki would have gotten the information to Clint and SHIELD operatives. It would be time sensitive, as the Sarkissian cousins would move locations immediately and wonder which agency Emilie was from later. If they thought about it, they would be able to figure out who she was.

She had one of the AIM guards' Berettas left and Loki's twin swords with her, as well as the dozens of cuts, bruises and one bullet graze on her left thigh, just above her knee. It would take time for those to heal, but at least she would. France had rather restrictive gun licensing laws, and as long as the gendarmes had no reason to check the safe house, she wouldn't have to try explaining why she didn't have legal ownership rights. She had done it before, but wasn't in the mood currently. Sleep wasn't a wise course of action, but her body craved it fiercely right now to help accelerate healing. She was exhausted, but it wasn't safe yet.

To her surprise, Natasha saw a shimmer in the air in front of her. It had to be someone with Asgardian magic, but she couldn't take that chance. Sarkissian had a mage of some kind on her payroll, and stories always told of sympathetic magic being able to do all kinds of weird shit with blood or hair samples. She had certainly bled a lot in her escape from Andorra.

Splitting the sword in two, Natasha fell into a ready stance as she faced the growing portal. She sighed in relief when Loki stepped through it. "Took you long enough," she said, lips curling with a smile.

"I had some things to do," he replied with a careless shrug. "But you haven't arrived in New York yet. Barton isn't pleased, but he's being patient."

"And patience isn't your strong suit."

"Of course not."

Natasha put the halves of the sword back together and offered it back to Loki hilt first. "This came in handy, thank you."

He smiled charmingly at her. "Keep it. I have others."

"Generous of you."

Loki approached and slid an arm around her waist. "Perhaps I have ulterior motives."

"It's you. Of course you do."

He laughed, but Natasha thought perhaps it sounded sad and pained now. "Indeed," he replied once the moment passed. "I can bring you out of here immediately."

"I need rest right now. The healing will take care of itself once I'm able to rest."

"That can be arranged."

In the blink of an eye, they were at her suite in Avengers Tower. "You may change and rest here," Loki told her.

She felt a surge of power in his hands and touched his chest before he could cast whatever spell he had in mind. "You can lock the doors if you want, but let the others know I'm here and safe. It will go a long way for their peace of mind."

"I don't care for their peace of mind," Loki replied, not quite snarling.

"But I do."

Amazingly enough, he desisted without further complaint, though he huffed like an impatient child. Natasha put the sword on her dresser and carefully removed the battered holster before letting the torn violet dress fall to the ground. She took off the garter belt and stockings, then crawled right under the covers of her bed. While she was fully aware of Loki's stare, she didn't care what he was thinking just yet. "You can watch over me as I sleep, just in case Sarkissian does have a caster or two up her sleeve. I bled enough that she might be able to track me."

Loki's expression darkened. "I will eliminate that threat."

Natasha sighed and sat up in bed, but Loki was already gone. Tiredly, she rubbed at her face. He didn't say he would kill Sarkissian, and she couldn't automatically assume he was threatening to kill someone. It was borrowing trouble, and she had to get her rest to heal.

Falling asleep, she decided that she would deal with Loki later.

***

When Natasha woke, she was still in her own bed at Avengers Tower. Loki was sitting on the floor in a corner of her bedroom, an ornate knife held loosely in his hands and a dark expression on his face. She could tell that her wounds were all gone; not even a single ache was left, and she had slept for a little over two hours. "Loki."

He looked at her, the expression not leaving his face. "They tried to find you. They wanted to kill you, torture you for what they thought you might know."

"And?" she prompted when he fell silent. Did he _care?_ That was a disturbing thought.

"No one steals from me," he said darkly, holding the dagger in a tight fist.

"How many did you kill?" Natasha asked, voice neutral. Ordinary people probably discussed bills and flowers or dinner plans or some shit like that. She got to discuss how many people her maybe-lover killed because of a blood trail she inadvertently left behind.

"Only two. The other four are gibbering idiots. Their spell backfired," he explained at her confused expression. "It was too complicated and not Midgardian in origin. They were trying to follow an old runic script that looked almost like it was from Svartalfheim. Their minds could not hold the backlash in magic. Their guards did not take kindly to the interruption."

"I suppose they wouldn't." Natasha got out of bed and moved to stand in front of him, a sway in her hips as if she was dressed in her nanomesh armor rather than a pair of lace panties. "So then why are you sitting on my floor and sulking?"

That wasn't quite enough to get a rise out of him. He stared at her, drawn expression on his face, and slowly put the knife down beside him. "You were injured," he said slowly, as if he was having trouble articulating his thoughts. Considering one of his many nicknames was Liesmith, Natasha rather doubted that it was words that were the problem.

"And I healed. It happens."

Loki looked at her, lips compressed into a thin line. "I do not like it."

"I don't either, but it still happens." She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. "What? Do you doubt that I'm fully healed? You think there's some kind of wound left?" she asked, challenge in her voice. Natasha knew that couldn't be it. It had to be confronting her mortality head on, just when he saw her as someone to go to when upset. He was troubled and troubling, impulsive and not used to dealing with the consequences of anyone's actions. Having a conscience now, he may have spent the time during her nap ruminating over his past misdeeds.

Loki looked at her when she outstretched her hand. "What?"

"If you don't trust your eyes, we're going to need a practical demonstration."

Once on his feet, Natasha went to a familiar looking duffel bag under her bed and started rifling through it. "This should be a good enough start, I think. I'll get more supplies later." Before he could ask her what she meant, she went to the closet and pulled on a loose cotton dress that covered everything yet left nothing to his imagination. He could see the outline of her body and the press of her nipples against the fabric. Quirking her lips, she picked up the duffel bag. "It's time to go, Loki. You know where we need to go."

He teleported them both to the safe house in Astoria. She was pleasantly surprised by the way he had furnished the empty bedroom. It was larger now than the apartment specifications were, and contained a massive four poster bed in the center, with luxurious black and emerald green sheets, gauzy embroidered curtains attached to each post and an obscene number of pillows. A large mirror hung over the mahogany dresser set, carvings and mother of pearl inlay set into each drawer. Matching bedside tables sat on either side of the bed, Tiffany lamps and thick runic texts piled high on each one. Thick pile carpeting was present from wall to wall, appearing almost like the textured furs she had seen before. Natasha assumed that the closet would be full of clothing now, and an extra door in the wall was likely to be a bathroom. She assumed it would be as sumptuous as the one she had seen in his hideaway.

"You've been a very busy boy," she purred, dropping the duffel bag and pulling him to face her. She took in his proud expression and allowed him to see a pleased smile on her face. "It's lovely," she continued, rubbing his arm gently.

"Natasha," he began, voice dropping into a softer and almost intimate tone.

She grasped him by the shirtfront and pulled him down to eye level. "We're going to begin now, Loki. If you ever get uncomfortable, you say 'Andorra' and it all ends. Do you understand?"

His lips parted and his pupils dilated with desire as he nodded readily enough. "Yes, Natasha."

Giving a small, secretive smile, she nodded and let go of him. "Strip down and then kneel," she commanded. Her voice was stern, indicating that she fully expected to be obeyed immediately. He did so, gracefully falling to his knees in front of her. "Clasp your hands behind your back, and bow your head." This he did immediately as well.

Taking her time, she set up the bed how she wanted it, and got out the toys she planned to use on Loki. Natasha slithered out of the dress and let it drop to the floor. Curling her toes into the carpet, she had to smile. He was such a sensualist, and definitely enjoyed the finer things. Being raised on Asgard certainly left its mark on him.

"Get up, lie down on your back on the bed. I'm going to restrain you."

There was a shiver through him, but he didn't say anything or raise his head. Taking a breath, he tilted his chin up slightly, still technically keeping his head bowed. "Do you really think they can hold me?" Loki managed to say with an almost confident sneer.

"They'll hold you because you want them to," Natasha said, voice cool. "You want to play this game, and you want to play by my rules. So you'll let them hold you for this."

Another shiver, but his chin fell a notch. "Yes, Natasha," Loki said, an anticipatory tremor in his voice. He wanted it so much, but she guessed that he was afraid of restraints. What kind did they have on Asgard? Probably enchanted ones, and probably the kind of restraints that suppressed his magic. It was likely one of the few things he would fear.

He held very still as she but the wrist and ankle restraints on him. They were soft leather, lined with sheepskin to keep the skin from abrading, with stainless steel links attaching the restraints to the anchor points. Those she put around each post, and she made sure that there was enough slack in his ankle restraints that he could pull up his knees. She would need the maneuverability soon enough. Loki continued to hold himself still, with artificially even breaths as she left the bed to put on the harness she had laid out. Natasha could see a fine tremor in his limbs, though she couldn't tell if it was anticipation or fear. Perhaps both at once.

"What's that?" he blurted when she brought something new to the bed.

Smiling enigmatically, Natasha started attaching the electrodes to his cock with precise, almost clinical movements. "You'll see," she purred as she attached the patch to his skin. She then knee-walked toward him, that same smile on her face. "But first, you're going to need to suck me," she said, positioning herself over his head. The dildo bobbed in front of his face, and she could see him eyeing it nervously, knowing full well by now what she planned to do with it.

Slowly, Loki parted his lips and gingerly took some of the dildo into his mouth. Natasha stared him down until he opened his mouth wider and she was able to slip it further into his mouth. She grasped his head firmly in her hands, and she held him steady until some of the tension seemed to bleed out of him. He was starting to fall into that trancelike state he had gotten into before, which she assumed was his subspace. She could really tell once he got his jaw working along the length of the dildo, licking and sucking it as if it was actual flesh. He flicked his eyes up to her face, looking for approval, and redoubled his efforts once he had it.

"Good boy," she crooned, rubbing at his scalp gently. "Just like that, Loki."

He nearly shuddered with pleasure right there, and she took the opportunity to bend backward, reaching behind her for the control to the stimulator. She turned it on just a little, enough for him to make a startled noise. Loki's breathing grew harsh, the way it did when the pleasure was starting to get to him. Natasha withdrew from his mouth then, and lubed up her fingers to start playing with his ass. He whimpered a little, straining and pulling up his knees with the contact. Natasha made soft crooning sounds, rubbing his stomach with one hand as she slid a finger inside him. She worked him a little looser, then scissored in a second finger. Loki made a soft keening sound, twisting his hips as she hit it prostate. She turned up the intensity of the stimulator a notch, making him whine in earnest.

"Tell me how much you want it," Natasha purred, moving her fingers in and out, pressing in on the prostate on the thrusts in. "Tell me you want me to fuck you."

Loki nearly sobbed as he twisted beneath her. "Natasha... Please..."

"Please what?" she asked, tone brooking no argument.

He made soft choking noises as his hips jerked, eyes shut tight and mouth fallen open. Natasha abruptly pulled her fingers out and wiped them clean on a small hand towel she had laid out for just that purpose. Loki nearly wailed in disappointment. "Please," he panted, writhing, still not opening his eyes yet. "Please."

"You have to say it."

It had to be exquisite torture, knowing she could give him release. The words stuck in his throat, just as she knew they would. He wasn't so far gone that he would say whatever she wanted him to, and she wanted him begging and pleading. She wanted him aware of that, and wanted the choice to beg her to be a conscious one.

"P-please," he gasped finally, twisting ineffectually. There was nothing but the low level of the stimulator, generating a steady pulse that was nowhere near enough to get him off. "Please fuck me, Natasha. I need it. I _need_ this."

Natasha stroked his stomach with one hand as she made soft shushing noises, lubing up the dildo with her other hand. "I know, Loki. I know. And it's going to be good for you, so good. You're going to be good for me, won't you? You'll hold back, you won't come until I tell you. And it's going to feel wonderful, Loki. It's going to feel divine," she crooned, starting to slide it in. He pulled on the wrist restraints and his knees came up, panting as she stretched him wide. "Take me in, Loki. You can do it, I know you can," she murmured, still rubbing his stomach. "Take it all in, nice and slow, nice and deep. You need this, Loki. You want me inside you, you want me to fuck you. You want me, and you want me taking over. You want me in control."

Loki pulled harder on the wrist restraints, tears at the corners of his shut eyes. "Natasha," he panted, whimpering when the dildo was fully seated inside him. He moaned, sounding almost ashamed of his desire.

"Sh," she crooned, starting to move slowly. She reached over to the stimulator control and dialed it up another notch, making him gasp and writhe beneath her. "It's all right. We both want this to happen. You want me, and I want this for you. It's all right, Loki. I've got you," she said, watching him drop further into his trance. "There you go. There it is. Just like that, Loki." She slid back out slightly, then further in until he groaned. "Open your eyes."

He opened them, a vulnerable expression on his face. Perhaps he had looked this way the last time she had done this, but she hadn't been able to see with his hair in the way. Natasha gave him an encouraging smile as she moved slowly, stroking the back of one thigh. "Watch me fuck you, Loki. See how happy you make me, that you're being so good for me right now."

His lips trembled, and he pulled at the wrist restraints again. "Natasha," he panted, sounding almost desperate. He pulled his knees up higher, and that let her next thrust hit his prostate dead on. Groaning, Loki trembled. "I don't know how to do this," he nearly wailed.

"Sh... It's okay. I've got you. I've got you," she murmured, starting to pick up speed. "You don't do anything, you just feel. Feel me inside you. I'm fucking you, Loki. It's my cock in you, my touch on you." He shuddered and nearly closed his eyes, overcome by the sound of her voice on top of the feel of the dildo and stimulator. "That's it. Like that, Loki. Just feel me, right there," she added, thrusting in harder. He made a choking sound, and she stroked his thigh comfortingly in response. "Yes," she murmured, feeling herself get a little slick inside. "Mmmm. You feel so good, so fucking good. You like it when I fuck you, don't you?"

Loki made a strangled groan of pleasure in response, twisting beneath her. She dialed up the stimulator again, and he cried out at once. Natasha moved faster, thrusting harder and deeper until he cried out again, hips bucking beneath her. "Louder," she purred, grasping his thigh to angle herself deeper inside of him. "Let me hear you. Call my name, tell me to fuck you harder, give you more. Tell me what you want."

"Natasha," he sobbed, pulling at the restraints as he writhed in earnest. "Pl-please, Natasha, please, I need... I need..." He groaned, back arching as he cried out again. "Fuck me harder, right there," he cried out when the dildo sank in deeply. "Ah! Natasha, please let me come, please, please, anything, please..."

"Not yet," she crooned, soothing his stomach with one hand. His cock was weeping, twitching under the stimulator's constant buzzing. Dialing it up another notch, she made a wicked, deep thrust that had him thrashing and screaming her name in desperation. Again and again she thrust into him, her own breathing ragged and harsh from the effort. "Soon, Loki," she said, hearing him wail in frustration. "Sh... Sh, Loki. Feel me as I do this, I'm right here. Soon, Loki. Soon I'll let you come. Right now, you just feel this. Feel me, Loki." He babbled something nonsensical, arching his back and bucking his hips. "Don't come yet," she reminded him, making him wail a little. "Soon, I promise. So soon, but you can go farther. I know you can take it, Loki. You can do it for me, I know you can. A little farther, just a little more..."

"I can't, I can't," he panted, barely remembering to speak in English and not Alltongue. He was close to breaking, his entire body shaking and pulling at the restraints. But they held, as he wasn't going to pull hard enough to make them shatter.

"You can," she crooned, stroking him and pumping her hips harder into him. "I know you can do this for me, Loki. You're doing so good, just a little more. Hold on, and it's going to feel so fucking good, you know it will."

"Natasha," he pleaded, looking at her with that vulnerable, desperate cast to his features. "Please, please, I have to come..."

"Yeah," she said after a few more thrusts. "You've been good, you can come."

With a sob of relief, his hips jerked and he spurted all over his stomach. His entire body sagged down to the bed, eyes sliding shut. He let out a shuddering sigh when she pulled out of him, and was too exhausted to even watch her unbuckle the harness and slip out of it. Natasha curled up around him on the bed after releasing the restraints, stroking his cheeks gently. "You did so well for me, Loki," she murmured, pressing her lips to his forehead. "See? It's not as hard as you thought, was it?"

"I tried so hard," he whispered, shivering.

Natasha shifted and sat up. He reflexively grasped hold of her waist, and she allowed the contact as she grabbed the hand towel and cleaned off his stomach. He shivered a little more, as if freezing, and she laid herself directly on top of his body. Her lips were right next to his ear, and she started humming. She wasn't even sure what song it was, but that probably didn't even matter. Arms wrapped around him, she held him even after his shaking stopped and his breathing evened out. After a few minutes, Loki put his arms around her and held her tightly. "Natasha," he whispered, sounding almost uncertain.

"You can tell me anything," she murmured encouragingly.

"You can't die."

"I won't for a long time, most probably. I'm more durable than I used to be."

His arms tightened even more, and Loki sounded almost childlike. "No. I won't let that happen. I would rather destroy Helheim than let you stay there."

Suppressing the urge to sigh, Natasha simply stroked his hair until his grip loosened. "That won't be necessary. I'm sure I'll be around for centuries."

"I'd do it if I had to."

"I'm sure you would. But you won't have to."

Loki relaxed further beneath her, and Natasha let her own breathing even out. Closing her eyes, she leaned her forehead against his. This was something she hadn't foreseen, that was for sure. Razing an entire world just for her hadn't been her intention, just occupying him so that he wouldn't destroy Midgard.

Whatever this deal was between them, it clearly meant far more to Loki than she thought it would. Possibly because he had driven everyone else away. Natasha was the only one left in his orbit that he allowed near him, if only because he could keep the illusion of dominance over her when he needed it.

"Loki, promise me you won't go on a rampage if anything happens to me," Natasha murmured after a moment, fingers threaded through his hair.

"I can't."

 _"Promise me,"_ she intoned, feeling him shiver beneath her. For a moment she thought he mumbled _I can't lose you,_ but she couldn't be certain over the thudding of her own heart beating. "You can't destroy an entire world just for me. You can't."

"I could," he said stubbornly, sounding like a tired child.

"All right," Natasha said with a sigh. "You could possibly bring a realm to his knees. But I mean you can't in the sense that I don't want you to. You shouldn't want to." _I'm not worth that kind of rage,_ she thought, her eyes closing again. "So promise me you won't destroy any realms just because I die."

Loki remained stubbornly silent for a long time, fingers twitching along her back. "No."

"Loki," she began in a warning tone.

"I can't promise you that. I don't know what I'll do if that happens."

"Just talk to Hel. Don't destroy her realm. I'm sure you can strike a bargain with her or something. She seemed very reasonable when I've talked to her."

"The bargains she makes are exchanges. One life for another. In the end, she always collects souls. Remember that."

Natasha held onto him when he tried to roll out from beneath her. Cupping one hand along the back of his neck, she pressed her lips to his temple. "We all deal in souls, Loki. I know that very well, and so do you. Some hold more value to us than others. That's just the way it is. You of all people know how to manipulate. I'm sure you can strike a better bargain than that."

His hands slid down her back until he reached the curve of her ass. "She always wins when it comes to her realm."

"Then maybe you need to come up with a contingency plan. Just because I won't die anytime soon doesn't mean that I eventually won't."

Loki was silent for a long time, but she couldn't feel the prior tension in him. "It will take some time to find something she values more than souls for her realm."

"That is something we have plenty of," she said, stretching out languorously over him. She almost said that he had plenty of time, but knew that would be a mistake. He had to think she was on his side, whatever that was. Natasha didn't know what the end result of this association would be, but she had to make sure that it didn't end in mass murder and destruction, no matter what realm might be the target.

"You said you were a blade," he said after a moment.

"Yes."

"You wound me, yet I never feel you cutting in until the moment has passed."

"Those who trained me would be pleased with that remark," Natasha said dryly.

"You're not commanding me right now, not exactly." Loki pushed her up a little so that he could look her in the eye. "Is it just curiosity that drives you? What do you gain from these encounters? Why is it that you persist when you know your Hawk despises me so?"

"Maybe it's because I want to see this through. You hate yourself so much, Loki. You don't even bother to deny that. You say you're burdened with glorious purpose, but all you do is turn everything you care about into ashes. You've even burned me."

Loki was pale and still, eyes large as he took in her neutral expression. "So why are you here, if I have hurt you so badly?"

"Because someone gave me a choice. And now I'm giving one to you."

"And if I don't choose wisely?"

"Then one day, I'm going to put you down."

He grinned, a sharklike grin that no longer frightened her. "And I will welcome that day."

"If that happens, maybe I will, too. But it's not today." Natasha brushed his hair from his face gently. "Today we rest, and then I will go to my debriefing at SHEILD."

Nodding, he let her settle back on top of him. They were nothing but a tangled skein of secrets, lies, and the occasional truth.

One day, those threads would snap.

The End.


End file.
